For some time now, Hermiston girls basketball coach Steve Hoffert has been hounded by his players to run a full-court press. He added it earlier this season, but chose to wait to debut it until league play, to send a message, he said.

It’s worked as planned in Hermiston’s first three league games, including Tuesday’s 64-35 win over rival Pendleton in front of a pinked-out crowd to honor Kathryn Youngman, a former Hermiston Spanish teacher and current Pendleton teacher who is in the midst of her third bout with cancer.

Sara Ramirez led all scorers with 17 points, Jansen Edmiston added 15 and Kynzaa Padilla had 11 in the win. Kalan McGlothan led Pendleton with 14.

“It was pretty much just get our press mistakes cut to the max and just have them turn over the ball without fouling,” Padilla said of her team’s intent while running the press.

“The girls were dying to run it,” Hoffert said. “I said ‘We’re not gonna show it, because everyone’s watching.’ We’re gonna show it in league and people around the state are gonna have to prepare for it.”

Though Hermiston hasn’t run its press much, it’s essentially fully-formed. There was a stretch in the first quarter when Pendleton struggled to cross midcourt, and Hermiston scored layups and got right back into the press. Quickly Hermiston was up 10-2 and the frustration was mounting on the Pendleton bench. That said, a feeding frenzy of sorts developed due to the amount of steals Hermiston gathered.

That forced the back to players — who’s one responsibility to is not give up layups — came up looking for steals and gave up layups.

“I can live with that as long as we’re scoring more than we’re giving it up,” Hoffert said.

From the opening tip, it seemed, Hermiston was the better team. Though its offense struggled in the first half shooting 3-pointers — just 1-15 — the defense held up its end of the bargain.

Hermiston forced seven first-quarter turnovers and 13 first-half turnovers en route to leading by 11 points after each period. The press worked, either forcing turnovers in the Bulldogs’ end or forcing bad and rushed down-court passes that were easily picked off. After the Bucks scored their first field goal of the game — a layup by McGlothan that beat the press — they wouldn’t score again until the 1:39 mark, when Haley Greb sank two free throws.

Hermiston led by as many as 16 in the second quarter but couldn’t land the killer blow. Hermiston threatened to break the game open in the second, but Pendleton, down 26-10, scored five unanswered points to close the game to 11 at 26-15. It would be the closest the Bucks would come.

The third quarter was when Hermiston’s offense finally came to life. Hermiston matched its best shooting quarter percentage-wise with an 8-13 effort from the field, but it was the 3-point shooting that was the different. Hermisotn shot 3-6 from deep in the third quarter and 2-5 in the fourth. Once the 3s started falling, Hermiston’s offense opened up with Jansen Edmiston drives and Kynzee Padilla and Maddy Juul putbacks.

Hoffert said in that first half they settled for 3s that were open for a reason.

“We talked about not relying on (the 3-point shot),” Hoffert said. “We settled. We got tired and we settled for 3s and they left us open. Hell, if I were playing us tonight, I’d have left me open, too, until we knocked some shots down. That’s what they did.”

Pendleton never had an answer for the second-half offensive outburst and trailed by as many as 30 points in the fourth quarter.

“We got weapons,” Hoffert said. “You just don’t want to wait all the time for it.”

Hermiston hosts The Dalles this Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Pendleton travels to Hood River for a 7:30 p.m. date with the Eagles the same night.

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PHS (6-12, 1-2) 4 11 14 6 — 35

HHS (15-3, 3-0) 15 11 20 18 — 64

PENDLETON — K. McGlothan 14, H. Greb 8, T. Fell 5, L. Richards 4, Cece Hoffman, Jaiden Lemberger 1, R. Gentner, S. Greb, H. Porter, M. Davies.

HERMISTON — S. Ramirez 17, J. Edmiston 15, K. Padilla 11, M. Juul 6, S. Gilbert 6, K. Heehn 5, R. Andreason, C. Wheeler, H. Meyers, R. Meyers, M. Wilson.

3-pointers — PHS 2, HHS 7. Free throws — PHS 15-18, HHS 1-4. Fouls — PHS 11, HHS 18. Fouled out — K. McGlothan (PHS).