The Belchertown girls basketball team got its first Suburban League win by defeating rival Chicopee, 62-56, Monday night.

“I think we realized the mistakes that we were making the first (game),” said Belchertown senior forward Cara McKenzie. “We analyzed their defenses, offenses and key players. We worked a lot on that at practice. We focused on what they were best at and what we were best at.”

The Orioles (11-2, 1-1) and Pacers (5-8, 1-2) met on Thursday. Belchertown only had nine points in the first quarter, which hurt it in the end. A late surge was not enough as the Orioles fell, 57-51.

“We wanted to come out with a better start than last time,” said coach Jason Woodcock. “We know what they do defensively. Last week we didn’t do a good job moving the ball, we didn’t get the ball in the middle of the zone too well. Defensively, we got lit up by the point guard penetrating.”

McKenzie played the high post for the first time this season. It allowed her to take away the entering point guard with her 6-foot-2 frame.

Tied at 17 after the first quarter, the defense held Chicopee to nine points in the second quarter as the Orioles led 33-26.

“Last (game) they had a bunch of girls driving in the middle of the paint and we had no answer for it at the time,” said McKenzie. “So we decided to fix our defense and it worked pretty well tonight.”

Three minutes into the second half, Belchertown called a timeout Chicopee pulled within two.

“(Coach) told us that we needed to relax and we needed to get our lead back up,” said senior guard Kayla Henry. “We finished the first half strong and in the third quarter we came out really slow. We had to being our energy back up.”

Sophomore guard Jenna Birks (11 points) followed with her second and third 3-pointers.

Henry led the game with three 3-pointers and 28 points.

“We just wanted to come into our gym and get the win at home,” said Henry. “We don’t want to lose two in a row and lose at home.”

Henry had back-to-back 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to give the Orioles a nine-point lead.

“We feed off of her. Offensively, it’s all about Kayla,” said Woodcock. “We want to put the ball in her hand. She’s smart. She can see thing that we can’t see on the sideline. She’s an unbelievable athlete. We go as she goes so luckily she’s always going.”