MERRILLVILLE — It definitely wasn’t pretty, but Class 4A No. 15 Crown Point girls got the job done against Merrillville on Friday night.

In the fast-paced contest, the Bulldogs’ defense led the way in a 68-35 Duneland Conference victory. Crown Point (6-2, 2-0 DAC) forced 28 turnovers and held the Pirates to 15 field goals.

“The game was ugly,” Crown Point’s Alex Webster said after scoring a team-high 15 points. “It was just two teams pressing the whole time and we have to handle the ball a lot better than we did. Merrillville’s the quickest team we’ve played this year and their guards were so fast.”

Because of the tempo, Crown Point was impatient on offense.

“Offensively, we have a lot to work on because we had some drastic lulls tonight,” Bulldogs Coach Tom May said. “There were times where we got nothing out of our offense and we made poor decisions. We needed to reverse the ball more and to make a few more passes.”

Despite scoring a game-high 15 points, Webster never got in a rhythm offensively. She shot 7-for-15 from the field and was 1-of-4 from the free-throw line.

“We were forcing things too much and my shot just wasn’t there,” she said. “I kept telling myself a shooter has to keep on shooting, but I couldn’t get out of the funk. I was fortunate to score some points off steals.”

Freshman point guard Cassie Pruzin made her first career start, finishing with 14 points after a rough start handling the ball against Merrillville’s trap.

“It was a lot different starting and I was just trying to go too fast,” Pruzin said. “Merrillville was so fast and they kept stealing my passes. I needed to settle down and I played better toward the end of the game.”

Crown Point didn’t show the patience to use talented center Carissa Triplett, who took only five shots and finished with five points.

“Carissa can do so much, but we haven’t been looking for her lately,” Webster said.

Reporter Annette VanDeCar can be reached at 648-3141 or by e-mail at avandecar@post-trib.com.