Not even the flu could stop the Laurel High girls basketball team last night.

The Lady Spartans erupted in the first quarter and cruised to a 66-39 nonsection win over visiting Lincoln Park.

Laurel outscored the Lady Leopards 21-4 in the first eight minutes.

“They really don’t have a lot of strong ballhandlers and we played great defense,” Laurel coach Jessica Shevitz said. “Once you’re up by so much, you have to settle into a halfcourt game. We ran out of wind pretty fast with a flu bug. We wanted to get the big lead and then we wanted to rotate and stay hydrated and fresh.

“We just wanted to make sure we kept everybody healthy. You try to make adjustments and they made the adjustments well.”

Ellen Shaffer led all scorers with 18 points and added seven boards and three blocks. Kristin Dicks totaled 15 points, seven steals and five assists, while Aleyce Bell tallied 11 points against the Lady Leopards (2-7).

The Lady Spartans only turned the ball over seven times and have started to gain momentum with their third straight win.

“There’s always things you want to see them clean up but we moved the ball well,” Shevitz said. “It’s good to be .500 and get three wins in a row. Hopefully we can carry that over into section play.”