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NILES — There was much to celebrate at the Bobcat Den at Brandywine in Thursday’s girls’ basketball game.

On the court, Brandywine concluded its regular season schedule with a dominating 58-29 non-conference win over St. Joseph.

Josh Hood’s Lady Bobcats, wearing their traditional Pink jerseys on Bobcats For Cure Pink Night to raise money for the Brian Parker Memorial Cancer Foundation, enter the postseason as undisputed champions of the Lakeland Conference after posting an 8-0 record and finishing 20-1 overall, along with a No. 2 ranking in the Division 3 Associated Press state poll.

Niles Brandywine enters next week’s district tournament at home as the No. 1 seed.

Before opening tipoff, Brandywine honored Ellie Knapp and Kadence Brumitt on Senior Night commemorating their accomplishments during their four-year varsity careers.

“Senior Night is always special here at Niles Brandywine because if you make it through four years in the program it’s the result of a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Both Ellie and Kadence are four-year starters and First-Team All-Conference all four years. They are both fierce competitors, come from great families and do it the right way. I’m blessed to have such great role models like those two for our future players,” said Brandywine head coach Josh Hood.

Against St. Joseph, junior Miley Young paced Brandywine in the scoring column with 14 points. Knapp and Brumitt tossed in 11 each, while Adelyn Drotoz and Adeline Gill finished with six points apiece. Lexi Troup contributed four and Lily Gill, Nyah Mason and Karleigh Byrd all finished with two points each.

Knapp made a blistering 9-of-10 (90 percent) on free-throw attempts.

The Lady Bobcats ended the evening making 16 field-goal attempts, including five three pointers, and 21-of-28 (75 percent) free-throw attempts.

St. Joseph was paced in scoring by Tess Kapelke and Ava Rommel with 10 points each.

The Lady Bears ended the night connecting on just 12 field-goal attempts and made 3-of-9 tries at the free throw-line.

Brandywine came out fast rolling to a 21-5 advantage over St. Joseph after the opening eight minutes. The Lady Bobcats scored points off four of the eight Bear turnovers it forced during the first quarter.

Young scored six of her points during that span for Brandywine.

Brandywine outscored its visitors 19-5 in the second quarter and made 9-of-11 free-throw chances in extending its lead to 40-10 entering halftime. Knapp led that run with seven points with five of them coming on charity tosses.

The host Bobcats built its advantage to 52-18 by the end of three quarters using a combination of outside shooting, getting the ball inside and by finding their way to the free-throw line.

Brandywine head coach Josh Hood was able to substitute freely throughout the fourth quarter as his team came within just a few points of setting the 45-point mercy clock into motion.

Although the game had a lopsided outcome, Hood says playing a Division I size school like St. Joseph is very beneficial for his ball club.

“It’s good for us to play a school the size of St. Joe and its good for us to see that kind of size, length and athletic ability. Our girls came out and played very well. We can celebrate this win tonight, but tomorrow we have to forget about it. Next week in the tournament everyone starts 0-0,” Hood said.