WHEATON – A simple switch in defenses paved the way for a victory by the St. Francis girls basketball team Friday night.

After one quarter, the Spartans trailed Aurora Christian in a Suburban Christian Conference clash, 9-4. But after switching from a man-to-man defense to a zone, St. Francis outscored the Eagles 36-22 the rest of the way for a 40-31 win.

“I’d like to think we’d be able to play man-to-man defense better against people and we’re going to keep working on getting better at it,” St. Francis coach Mike Phillips said. “But that’s a very athletic team, a very well-coached team, and we didn’t have the exact matchups we needed at the beginning of the game.”