The Shenango High girls basketball team had no answer for Laurel’s Ellen Shaffer and Jessica Conrad.

The Lady Spartans standouts combined for 39 points and 26 rebounds in their 65-41 WPIAL, Section 2-AA road win over the Lady Wildcats last night.

Shaffer posted a career-high 28 points and added a game-high 16 rebounds, while Conrad tallied an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double for Laurel (3-1, 7-4).

“Both of my posts had double-doubles,” said Laurel coach Jessica Shevitz, whose team now has won four straight games. “Ellen was a beast. We’re happy with the win. We thought we should win this game. It was good to go out and take care of business.”

The Lady Wildcats (2-2, 6-6) have now lost four of five after starting the season at 5-1.

“We’re a young team,” Shenango coach Brian Turk said. “We’re playing a bunch of freshmen and sophomores with a couple juniors. We have to get back to work and see if we can correct some of our mistakes for the second time around in the section. We still have Beaver Falls and Mohawk yet to play. Hopefully if we can get both of those games, we’ll be 4-2 in the section and back in the thick of things.”

Laurel jumped out to a 17-7 lead and extended it to 50-32 after three quarters before outscoring their hosts 15-9 in the final period.

Shenango had problems keeping the Lady Spartans out of the paint.

“We just didn’t play well and Laurel did,” Turk said. “We just ran into a pretty good team that was able to put the ball in the hole. They played great man-to-man defense and shot the ball well. They made a bunch of high-percentage shots in the paint and we didn’t.”

Shevitz was equally pleased with her club’s defense and free-throw shooting. Laurel made 14-of-19 freebies.

“We’re really preaching defense right now,” she said. “Our offense is coming along and we’re averaging more points than Laurel has in a while. The girls did a really good job defensively tonight.

“We’ve corrected our free throw woes (last) night. We were putting in the shots that we needed to.”

Brooke Dicks contributed eight points, five assists and five steals to the victory, while Rachael Baker finished with 10 points and five assists.

Shenango was led by Emma Rich’s 14 points.