Henry Ford II vs. Utica is always a good rivalry — but Tuesday’s meeting had a little bit extra to it.

The Falcons hosted the Chieftains on Dec. 3 and took out some prior frustration from last season’s district tournament upset between the same teams in the same venue, beating their MAC crossover rival 56-10.

“Obviously, they (Utica) graduated a lot more than we did, but we graduated some too,” said Ford head coach Matt Joseph. “So it’s a different team (than last year). But you know what? I mean, it’s Utica and Ford, and it’s been a great rivalry. And that’s the best part about it, I think, is when you have that good rivalry. Jay (Muchortow) does a great job with them. And when you have that good rivalry, those games are fun to me.”

The Falcons dominated from the start. A 15-0 run to start the game meant that they never trailed, and Ford led 25-2 after the first eight minutes. They never replicated that same offensive outburst in a quarter, but they held the Chieftains without a made field goal in the first half en route to a 34-2 advantage at the break.

“It’s always great when you come out with that energy,” Joseph said. “And we came out flying around and, I think when we get our athletes running, they can do some good things. And they did that, especially in the first quarter and we jumped up to that big lead.”

All five Falcon starters scored in the first quarter, and nine different players got in the scoring column. They thrived with putting their full-court pressure on the Chieftains’ inexperienced ballhandlers, forcing turnovers up and down the floor.

Anayya Davis led all players with 17 points despite sitting for the final 12 minutes of the game.

Her dominance on the boards — along with the rebounding prowess of teammates Tyra Wright, Emily Leusby and Claire O’Brien — extended possessions for Ford and ended them for Utica.

“(Rebounding’s) huge … that’s been our number one point of emphasis this year, is to be able to rebound on both ends,” Joseph said.

“And that’s been something that we’ve been working really hard at and talk a lot about at practice. There’s consequences if they don’t. I thought, especially in the first half, that paid off.”

Leusby had nine points. Wright, O’Brien and Violet Anderegg each had six points, Karis Hlavin and Sabre Williams each had four points and Makenna Bettys and Maria Raciti scored two points apiece.

Anderegg, Hlavin and Williams got all their scoring in the fourth quarter.

It was a reassuring step in the right direction for a Falcons’ team with lofty goals for this year, and the outing displayed something that Joseph says will be the key to reaching them.

“The number one thing is just playing with that effort for 32 minutes, regardless of the score,” he said. “Whether we’re down 10 or up 10, playing with that tenacious effort. And then I think everything else falls into place.

“You know, we obviously have our goals, we sit down and write them out, but we talked a lot about if you just play with effort no matter what, and keep those blinders on and handle that adversity, then you get your share of wins.”

Utica’s slow start was thanks in part to the graduation of eight seniors and the majority of the scoring from last year’s team. Though six players returned from the team that upset the Falcons last year, they vary in experience level.

Returners Alexis Petruccioli had four points and Violet Smith had two. Newcomers Cara Clark had four, Rachel Durecki had one and Leah Sleiman had one.

One silver lining from the difficult first game was that Muchortow was able to give everybody on the roster playing time, including those who normally might not get into the fray.

“We knew that they (Ford) were going to be a good team,” Muchortow said. “They bring back a lot of experience. They’ve got really good players, and coming in as them (being) your first contest is a little hard.

“But we just talked about, hey, we got a lot of people that got to play today. They all gained some experience. And we use that to kind of build toward the end of the year, right? We knew it was going to be rough. Did we expect it this rough? No, you never do. But at the same time, hey, everyone got in early, got to experience some pressure, different elements of the game.”