With their best offensive weapon saddled with foul trouble in the first half, the Cass High girls basketball team never found its rhythm against visiting Lambert, losing 68-43 in the first game at its new gym.

The Lady Longhorns fell behind by a point early, but they would not trail after that brief deficit. Lambert scored 15 of 19 points to take an 18-8 lead at the end of the first quarter as the Lady Colonels' leading scorer, Carla Clemmons, was held to two points.

Cass's offense gained slight momentum in the second quarter, even with Clemmons on the bench with her third foul.

Myra Russell, who replaced Clemmons, scored five straight points for the Lady Colonels during one stretch, and her three-point play around the 3-minute mark cut the lead to eight (26-18).

The Lady Longhorns were able to push that lead back to double digits by halftime, taking a 32-20 lead.

In the second half, things worsened for Cass, who began to get sloppy with the basketball in its attempt to break Lambert's full-court press.

The Lady Longhorns opened the third quarter by scoring eight points in a row to extend their cushion to 40-20.

Following Amber Bowen's basket for the Lady Colonels, Lambert went on another run, this time a 9-0 spurt as Taylor Lanier provided 5 of her team's points in that time period.

Tyshika Jackon's free throw and Courtney Bailey's corner 3-pointer stemmed the bleeding, but not for long.

Managing one more 9-0 run, the Lady Longhorns led 58-26 before Bowen made a free throw and Jasmine Estwick hit a buzzer-beating layup for Cass, who trailed by 29 points heading into the final quarter.

Jackson, who opened the fourth with a clever left-handed layup on the right-side of the goal, fouled out early in the quarter as fouls continued to plague the Lady Colonels.

Lambert led by as many as 30 points in the fourth -- on Heather Blastick's 3 -- but Cass managed to close the game with a 6-0 run to provide the final 25-point margin.

Estwick, Russell and Clemmons all scored 8 points to lead the Lady Colonels, and Bowen finished with 7.

The Lady Longhorns flexed their depth and scoring balance as eight players scored 6 or more points led by Blastick (12), Christina Johnson (9), Lanier (8), Katy Roberts (8), Elise Reyes (8), Haley Pope (6), Jordan Hammer (6) and Kaitlin Kidwell (6).

Cass (3-9, 1-4 Region 7-AAAA) welcome another region opponent, Rome, to its new gym Tuesday at 6 p.m.