It had all the makings of a disastrous loss for the Mount Hebron girls basketball team.

The seventh-ranked Vikings endured a nine minute, 13-second stretch in which they couldn't manage a single point, and watched as No. 6 Long Reach turned a 19-point deficit into a one-point fourth-quarter lead.

But senior guard Thera Wolven asserted herself at a critical time, knocking down three-pointers on consecutive possessions to jump-start the Vikings to a 48-35 win over the scrappy Lightning in the Howard County opener for both teams at Mount Hebron.

"It would have been devastating to lose this game because we're the county champs from last year, and to see them ranked ahead of us was really a big motivating factor," said Vikings senior Kristen Waagbo, who turned in another stellar outing with 20 points.

It was Wolven, however, who hit the biggest shots of the afternoon for the Vikings (2-0).

Long Reach (1-1), which didn't make a field goal in the first quarter and the first 2 1/2 minutes of the second and trailed 22-3 at one point, engineered a 15-0 run spanning the second and third quarters. The Lightning eventually took a 31-30 lead on a put-back from junior guard Lytia Blackmon in the opening minute of the fourth.