They won and then got stuck in a blizzard Saturday (Dec. 11) in Sioux City. The Washington Warriors girls’ basketball team was forced to spend an extra night at the Hampton Inn, but Coach Frank Howell and his team didn’t seem to mind.

“We didn’t really have a way of getting out of town,” Howell said. “Every route that we could have tried would have been closed to us. And, even if it wasn’t closed to us, it probably wouldn’t have been very smart to try it,” Howell said.

The No. 6 Washington Warriors easily handled No. 11 Class 3A-ranked Sioux City Bishop Heelan, the defending 3A state champions, 67-42, earlier in the day. The win came on the heels of a solid 68-55 victory on Friday night over the 2009 4A state champion Sioux City North Stars, who were ranked No. 7 this week.

Howell and his troops were in a happy state of mind Saturday night and were unfazed about changing travel plans.

“It has all worked out pretty well for us. We traveled with Linn-Mar and they won both games as well, so they are happy and we are pretty happy too. It’s no big deal to stay one more night,” he said.

The Warriors lost both games at home last year in this so-called East-West Challenge. Howell said that to beat the defending 3A champs on their home floor is a pretty nice accomplishment.

“Being so far away from home and being on their home floor, it is a nice win for us. We are in a pretty good spot right now and hopefully we can keep playing well right up to the Christmas break,” Howell said.

The big story was a blistering start as Washington outscored Heelan 25-5 in the first quarter.

“We played really well. We then withstood an 11-2 run that they (Heelan) made in the second quarter to get up 19 points going into the lockerroom at halftime. That was probably where a lot of it was done,” Howell said. “For the second half, I think it was pretty even.”

The Warriors were led by Alissa Oney who dropped in three 3-pointers for 11 total points. Tia Dawson got into foul trouble, but managed five field goals for 10 points and also snared 12 rebounds. Washington led 49-26 after three quarters and squashed the Crusaders on the boards, 62-42.

Jazz Royster, who had a career-high 25 points on Friday night, also got into foul trouble and was limited to six points on 3-of-5 shooting.

“We did have foul issues with both Jazz and Tia with three fouls by halftime, so we had pretty good bench play from a lot people,” Howell said ”Jordan Carr gave us four points when we were getting that margin back up towards 19 points when our lead was cut down a bit.”

The Warriors hit 40 percent from the floor (28-of-69), but just 7-of-19 free throws (37 percent). Bishop Heelan was 14-for-60 (23 percent) and 13-for-28 from the foul line (46 percent). Neither team did much from behind the arc. Heelan hit just 1-for-15 and Washington was a spotty 4-for-19.

Bishop Heelan (4-3) lost its third straight game, while the Warriors moved to 6-0 overall. The Crusaders lost badly to Linn-Mar on Friday night, 73-47.

Megan McCarthy led Bishop Heelan with 15 points. Natalie Vondrak had 11 rebounds.

“Heelan does a pretty good job of speeding up the tempo and finding a way to get some open looks for three’s, but they only made one of them,” Howell said. “To hold them to only one three-point field goal over the course of the game was a really big deal. To hold them to 42 points with the type of tempo they play was a really big deal as well.”

Howell is genuinely surprised by his team’s 6-0 start.

“I don’t know if I have ever been 6-0,” he said. “Most of the time I’ve had at least one loss at this point and sometimes after the first game with one loss, so this is a pretty good spot to be in.”

Washington travels to Dubuque Wahlert on Tuesday before hosting Jefferson on Friday night in a boy-girl doubleheader.

WASHINGTON (67): Jazz Royster 3-5 0-4 6, Tia Dawson 5-11 0-0 10, Jordon Pilcher 2-7 0-0 4, Alissa Oney 3-8 2-4 11, Ashley Piper 2-7 1-1 5, Janay Pritchett 2-6 2-4 6, Madison Kramer 1-1 1-3 3, Tasha Roundtree 1-2 0-0 3, Layloni Beard 2-6 0-1 4, Gail Barnum 1-4 0-0 2, Jordan Carr 2-5 0-0 4, Kelli Klaus 4-5 1-2 9, Chelsey McMahon 0-0 0-0 0, Abby Herb 0-1 0-0 0, Brooke Foreman 0-0 0-0 0, Lauren Goodlove 0-0 0-0 0, Callie Stone 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 28-69 7-19 67.

HEELAN (42): Olivia Niggeling 0-3 0-0 0, Natalie Vondrak 0-5 1-4 1, Jenna Graves 0-8 2-2 2, Madison Yohe 2-8 4-6 8, MaKayla Augustine 1-6 0-0 2, Kelsey Van Patten 0-0 0-3 0, Megan McCarthy 6-12 3-5 15, Alex Fuller 3-11 0-0 7, Molly Fischer 0-4 1-2 1, Taylor Koolstra 1-2 2-5 4, Lauren Brobst 1-1 0-0 2, Emily Keane 0-0 0-1 0. Totals 14-60 13-28 42.

Halftime — Washington 37, Heelan 18. 3-point shots — Washington 4-19 (Oney 3-6, Roundtree 1-2, Pilcher 0-4, Piper 0-3, Pritchett 0-2, Carr 0-1, Stone 0-1), Heelan 1-15 (Fuller 1-6, Graves 0-3, Fischer 0-3, Augustine 0-2, Yohe 0-1). Rebounds — Washington 62 (Dawson 12), Heelan 42 (Vondrak 11). Turnovers — Washington 25, Heelan 21. Total fouls — Washington 21, Heelan 18. Fouled out — None.