Huntley wasn’t fazed going into its season opener against last year’s third-place team in the state.

Huntley’s young starting five, featuring a pair of freshmen and a lone senior, wasn’t fazed either.

Neither was its conventional defense, which shut down the Bartlett Hawks (0-1) to the tune of a commanding 67-29 victory on Tuesday night’s season opener.

The Red Raiders (1-0) wanted to send a message to the revered Bartlett team early, and they did.

“We wanted to set the tone, and I thought they did a good job of setting the tone defensively,” said Steve Raethz, Huntley’s head coach.

The Raiders established that tone by forcing many turnovers and taking advantage of the shaky Bartlett team.

“We didn’t take very good care of the ball,” Bartlett head coach Denise Sarna said.  “We have a lot of improvement to do as far as handling the ball.”

The Raiders’ offense came out firing, orchestrating a multi-faceted attack to take a big lead early.  Huntley spread the ball and jumped out to a 16-2 lead after the first six minutes of play, all lead by junior forward Sam Andrews.

“[Andrews] had a really nice inside, outside game for us tonight,” Huntley head coach Steve Raethz said.

Andrews’ 21-point performance was complemented by her unfazed freshman sister’s 13-point contribution.  But the two weren’t alone in executing the 38-point rout.  Eight other Huntley players tacked onto the victory, including 7 points from quick freshman point guard Kayla Barreto.  Barreto’s performance, along with Ali’s, showed that Huntley could succeed with a young, balanced offense while Bartlett could not.

“Kayla does a nice job of running the show for us at the one,” Raethz said. “Both Ali [Andrews] and Kayla Barreto did a nice job of stepping up.”

The Raiders’ next test is in the Charger Thanksgiving Tournament, which begins on Wednesday.

“It was a really big win for the start of the season,” Sam said.  “It’s going to keep our intensity up [going into the tournament].”