It was a tale of two halves last night for the Mohawk High girls basketball team.

The Lady Warriors struggled defensively in the first half in digging a 10-point halftime deficit.

But Mohawk made good use of the halftime break and came out a different squad in the final 16 minutes for a 53-43 WPIAL Section 1-AA home win over Riverside.

The Lady Warriors (3-1 section, 9-2 overall) erased a 35-30 deficit after three quarters by outscoring the Lady Panthers (3-2, 8-2) 23-8 in the final frame. Mohawk was 20 of 34 from the foul line for the contest, including 14 of 24 from the stripe in the pivotal period.

“Basically as bad as we played defensively in the first half was as good as we played defensively in the second half,” Lady Warriors coach Mike O’Lare said. “Our start out of halftime really was a difference-maker. We just played really well in the third quarter.

“Defensively, we made mistake after mistake in the first half. Once we made changes at halftime and helped kids getting into the right place, everything just worked out. Ashley McConnell was a big reason we won this game, because of her defensive effort.”

The win puts the Lady Warriors in sole possession of second place in the section by a half-game over Riverside.

Aliya Gage garnered 19 points for Mohawk and Samantha Carr collected 14, 13 of which came in the second half. Erin Giancola snared a team-high eight rebounds to go with six markers for the winners.

“Gage just keeps getting better and better,” O’Lare said. “I think her best basketball is still ahead of her.”

Abbey Matiko netted a team-best 14 points for the Lady Panthers, all of which came in the first half.

“That was part of the change we had to make defensively, moving kids around,” O’Lare said. “Matiko was getting a ton of points early on.”