LOGANSPORT — Logansport and Marion entered Friday night’s girls basketball showdown as the two remaining unbeaten teams in North Central Conference play.

The Berries came out with a big knockout punch early, jumping out to a 21-5 lead six minutes in, and were in control the rest of the way in a 67-52 win at the Berry Bowl.

The Berries (14-3, 5-0 NCC) are now in the driver’s seat in league play, while the Giants (8-8, 4-1) have to hope either Richmond or New Castle can knock off Logansport in its final two NCC contests.

“We wanted to come out strong and get on them early and set a tone for the game,” said Logan’s Whitney Jennings, who had 23 points and seven assists in the win. “We were going to play hard all game and we did that.”

All five Berry starters got in the scoring column early to jump out to the 21-5 lead. McKenzie Mills had six points and two assists in that time, and she pulled down a nice rebound that led to a layup by Rachel Jennings on an assist by Whitney Jennings to make it 17-4 early.

The Giants got to within 25-16 lead on the first basket of the second quarter before the Berries went on a 9-0 run to take an 18-point lead midway through the frame.

Rachel Jennings started that run with a 3-pointer, Nakeya Penny had a field goal, Mills had a putback and Whitney Jennings added a basket.

Logan coach Jerry Hoover said he was surprised by Marion’s game plan to start the game.

“I couldn’t figure out what they were trying to do because they were taking real quick shots and trying to run on us, and it really surprised me,” he said. “I just thought they’d wait till [Laura] Friday got a shot and Friday get another shot and Friday get another shot, like Benton Central did. The way they wanted to play is of course to our strength because anytime you can get Whit in the open floor in the running game, why it’s to our advantage. So that happened quite a bit. We didn’t get back [on defense early], we were surprised a couple times, but after that we got back pretty well.”

Logan led 44-24 at halftime and built the lead to as big as 60-35 with a minute left in the third quarter. Marion ended the game with a 6-0 run to cut the final margin to 15, the closest it had been since early in the second quarter.

The Berries ran a box-and-one on Marion’s leading scorer, Evansville-bound Friday, and they held her to just six points on 2 of 9 shooting. She did have nine assists and five rebounds.

“Friday’s a great player,” Whitney Jennings said. “She’s like 60 percent of their scoring, she either scores or gets the assist, so we knew if we could contain her and keep the ball out of her hands we could win this game.”

Hoover credited Rachel Jennings and Bailey McIntire for covering Friday.

“I really thought that Rachel did a good job on Friday and then I thought that McIntire did a great job on her. She didn’t smell the ball when McIntire was on her,” he said. “I thought the two of them were really the difference in the ballgame because I just thought it’d be a lot closer ballgame than what it turned out to be.”

Freshman Penny just missed a double-double with 19 points and nine rebounds in the win. She added a game-high four steals.

“She’s coming along, and she’ll get a jump shot this summer,” Hoover said. “And once she gets a pure jump shot ... Jasmine [Penny] didn’t have a jump shot when she was a freshman — people don’t remember that, but she really didn’t get a jump shot until her junior year. If we can get Nakeya to shooting jays, face-up jump shots off the dribble this summer, she’s gonna be a pretty good basketball player, pretty hard to handle.”

Rachel Jennings scored 10, Mills had eight points and six rebounds and Kiley Victor added seven points and eight boards. Seanna Redman added five boards in just 11 minutes.

Khyaire Speed led the Giants with 14 points and eight boards, and Sasha Glickfield and Tori Smith had eight points apiece. Shalay Stevens added four points and nine boards.

Logan shot 61 percent from the field in the first half but cooled off in the second and shoot just 26 percent to finish at 42. But the Berries held the Giants to 39 percent shooting for the game, including 2 of 20 from 3-point range, and they forced 20 turnovers while committing just six.

In the end the Berries were able to bounce back strong after a loss to Class 3A No. 7 Benton Central Tuesday night and once again were sharp in an NCC game.

“We didn’t play well Tuesday night,” Whitney Jennings said. “The coaches weren’t too happy with us. But we battled back and we played hard tonight and got the W.”

Logan gets a week off before traveling to Richmond next Friday night. A win would secure at least a share of the league title. The Berries then close out league play at home against New Castle the following Friday night.

Hoover noted it’s the first time in his tenure the Berries have been in such a position in the league. They shared the NCC title in 2008 after opening with an overtime loss to Kokomo. The only other time they’ve won it was in 1997 when they won it outright.

But he added they’ve still got a lot of work to do.

“Richmond’s gonna be hard there,” he said. “They’re sound, they’ve got a very good coach that came out of a junior college program in Texas, and that’s good basketball and tough basketball. They’ve got a good freshman that’s a really good player. So we’ll have our hands full, a long bus ride Friday night, got to play right away after you get off the bus. So it’ll be a hard game for us.

“Looking ahead then New Castle here. We’ve got a little grit in our crawl about New Castle. Last year we were tied and they had dollar night at the Fieldhouse, had 4,000 in there and gave away popcorn and everything else. So [athletic director Greg] Fisher’s has assured me that we’re not going to be outdone if it does come down to that here. We’ll see what we can do, give them a little Logansport hospitality here.”