Sadie Stroup was on fire.

The 5-foot-10 Foresthill senior scored 21 points, including 11 in the first quarter, and her Wildfires hung on tight to defeat the visiting Forest Lake Christian girls basketball 45-44 Friday night in a Central Valley California League game.

Foresthill (6-9, 3-1) allowed just one point in the second quarter and led 23-13 at half.

Stroup, a guard-forward, drilled three 3-pointers on the night but managed just seven points in the final two quarters.

“I think the first quarter they weren’t used to our offense yet,” she said, “so I just kept getting open to my sweet spot so that made it kind of easy to score. They really started catching onto it the second half.”

Forest Lake (10-8, 2-2) trailed 34-25 at the end of the third, but came within 42-41 with 1:20 to go and 45-44 with less than three seconds remaining.

“I think we kind of started to slack off on defense a little bit,” Stroup said. “I think because we were doing so good on offense we just kind of fell back on defense a little bit.”

Forest Lake’s Lauren Piner (16 points) and Emily Woodward (13) both had solid nights and nearly helped their team pull off a come-from-behind victory.

Others contributing to the scoring for Foresthill included Cherish Miles (10 points) and Emily Perez (7).  

The Wildfires return to the court Tuesday, when they host Delta (2-6, 1-2) at 6:30 p.m. Forest Lake travels to Victory Christian (11-4, 1-2) Tuesday for a 6:30 p.m. contest.

Reach Matthew Kimel at matthewk@goldcountrymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewkimel