Justin St. Ours | Daily Press Rapid River’s Cecilia Pilon (4) takes a shot in front of Mid Peninsula’s Daisy Englund Tuesday at Mid Peninsula.

ST. NICHOLAS — Both teams took a moment to shake the rust off here Tuesday as the Rapid River girls’ basketball team edged the Mid Peninsula Wolverines 40-38 to earn a debut win for first-year Rockets’ coach Scott Goodacre in a Skyline Central Conference opener.

“The girls did exactly what they needed to do, and they put good emphasis on the working hard part tonight,” Goodacre said. “The bench came in great, filled in and gave the breaks where we needed them. Everybody did their job.”

Entering the fourth quarter, the Rockets led 34-26. The Wolverines’ Kennedy Englund shrunk the gap with a jumper less than 30 seconds into the quarter, and started a 10-4 run to reduce their deficit to 38-36 with two minutes left.

Mid Pen turned aggressive to try to force a turnover and ended up fouling Kristin Goodacre, who made both free throws to extend the Rockets’ lead to 40-36 with 34.8 seconds left.

“We must’ve been rusty,” Mid Pen coach Phil Croasdell said. “We always shoot way better than this but they had good defense on us, so I give them credit for that. We just couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

After a missed Rapid River free throw, the Wolverines’ Landry Koski hit a jumper from outside to pull them within two. The Rockets then missed the front end of a single-bonus situation to give Mid Pen one last chance, but a last-second shot from downtown by Daisy Englund didn’t connect.

“We’ve been working on a man-gap,” coach Goodacre said. “If you’re not on-ball, you’re helping at all times. (When) your player gets the ball, you have to close and get back to your player. They did a good job of helping each other.”

Mid Pen took an early lead in the first quarter, but fell behind as Goodacre earned back-to-back scores after stealing the Wolverines’ inbound attempt with 25 ticks left in the first half.

“Defensively, I think we did a great job. We held Natalie (Belanger) in check for the most part,” Croasdell said. “We kept her off the boards, and we did decently there. The only thing is we let Kristin off a couple times and she hit some 3s on us, and that was pretty much the difference there.

“It’s a tough one. I don’t know if it was jitters or what, but we’ll just try to forget about it and move on.”

The Rockets widened the gap in the third on the back of three 3s and 14 points from Goodacre, pulling ahead 34-26 by the end of the quarter.

“(This) is huge,” coach Goodacre said. “I told the girls before the game started that this would decide what kind of season we would have.”

Goodacre finished with 19 points and three triples to lead Rapid River.

Koski led the Wolverines with 12 points.

“Our new sophomore, Landry Koski, did a good job coming off the bench,” Croasdell said. “She hit a few shots. Elli Paulsen also had a few nice buckets in the first half. Those two coming off the bench did pretty well for us.”

Mid Peninsula, which won the jayvee game 29-21, visits Carney-Nadeau Friday. Rapid River hosts North Central Thursday.

Rapid River 4 11 19 6 — 40

Mid Peninsula 5 7 14 12 — 38

Rapid River — K. Goodacre 19, Belanger 8, Pilon 6, Paulin 4, Poore 3. FT: 2-6; F: 17; Fouled out: Keys. 3-point field goals: K. Goodacre 3, Poore 1.

Mid Peninsula — L. Koski 12, C. Koski 9, Croasdell 6, K. Englund 5, Paulsen 4, D. Englund 2. FT: 9-16; F: 11; Fouled out: None. 3-point field goals: K. Englund 1.