Returning to Bishop Ryan to take on her former team, Velva junior Emma Passa dropped a game-high 22 points with a handful of forceful blocks to keep the Aggies perfect on the season.

Passa, who moved schools over the summer, enjoyed the surreal experience of being back in Bishop Ryan gymnasium. Pulling out a 57-29 win certainly helps.

“It’s a little weird playing here at Bishop Ryan and playing against my former teammates,” Passa said. “But, it’s really fun to play against your friends. I had a good time.”

The No. 2-ranked Velva High School girls basketball team improved to 8-0 overall with the victory, while Ryan dropped to 1-5 overall.

Missed shots both ways led to a slow start. Ryan moved out to a narrow 4-0 lead after layups were made by Sidney Lovelace and Sylvie Kramer.

“We battled right out of the gate with them,” Ryan head coach Roger Coleman said. “Great energy, took care of the basketball and got good stops on defense. But, later in the game, it kind of got away from us a little bit.”

After being held scoreless for roughly the first four minutes of the contest, Velva finally got rolling with a 14-0 run to close out the first quarter.

Velva’s Grace Mogen contributed five of those points with a transition layup and a triple.

“We were just trying to get into the rhythm of things,” Velva head coach Chris Braaten said. “Ryan has a lot of quickness out there and a little bit of length. We are a little shorter in stature, so we were trying to adjust. And we didn’t have some shots fall right away. Good looks, just didn’t fall. That happens.”

Passa, after a rough first quarter shooting, turned things around with her defense and blocks that looked like volleyball spikes.

“It took us a while to get our offense going,” Passa said. “But, we played some really good defense. Eventually we started playing together and our shots started falling.”

Ryan, however, wasn’t going away easily. They hung around with a 3-pointer by Maya Wald and Sealy Rovig was getting out in transition before she picked up her fourth foul with 1:10 left before halftime.

Rovig sat out most of the second half before fouling out with 1:28 remaining. She finished with a team-high 10 points. Wald picked up five points, second-most on the team.

“(Rovig) handles the ball the most and we trust her to make the good decision for our team,” Coleman said. “So, taking her out, it does disrupt our flow a little bit, especially offensively. But, some of our younger girls stepped up and they are improving every week.”

Velva led by a modest 11 points at halftime, 21-10.

The Aggies doubled their score in the third quarter by outscoring Ryan, 21-9.

“We got to the basket a little bit,” Braaten said about the second half. “We relied on our defense to hold the fort down until the offense got warmed up.”

The Lions were within six points after a Grace Candrian 3-pointer, 23-17, but Velva put the game out of reach shortly after with a 16-2 run. Velva junior Kaitlyn Lund had five of her nine points in the third quarter.

When the final buzzer sounded, the Aggies had a convincing 28-point margin of victory after a shaky start.

“Keeping them under 30 points says a lot about our defense,” Braaten said. “The girls like to hang their hats on that. We kind of keep that as our goal from game-to-game. So, mission accomplished.”

The Aggies carry their eight-game win streak into Harvey on Thursday. The Velva girls team will play at 6:30 p.m. with the boys varsity game to follow at 8 p.m.

As for the Lions, they will host Stanley on Thursday with a 7:15 p.m. tipoff.

Alex Eisen covers Minot State athletics, the Minot Minotauros and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @AEisen13.