David W. Smith/ Daily NewsGreenwood's Lacey Walker gets fouled by Warren East's Keisha Ray during action in the Holiday Classic Saturday night at Greenwood High School.

The Warren East Lady Raiders began their quest for a pair of championships Saturday with a 49-33 victory over tournament host Greenwood in the Culver’s Lady Gator Holiday Classic.

In the short term, Warren East (5-3, 1-0) set up a battle with Princeton (Ohio) tonight for the right to advance to Monday’s semifinals. More important, though, Saturday’s win gave the Lady Raiders a good start in a game that counted toward the District 14 regular-season standings.

Warren East held Greenwood (5-6, 0-1) to 24.5 percent shooting and got a big night from senior Ashley Rainey and a solid outing from junior Kate Holmes.

“We talked about this being big because this was our first game in district play,” WEHS coach Angie Anderson said. “Our goal all season long has been to play good defense. I think so far … our halfcourt defense is really good.”

Rainey, who finished with a game-high 24 points and 24 rebounds, set the tone early, scoring Warren East’s first 12 points.

With Rainey the only Lady Raider in the scoring column for the first quarter and a half, Greenwood took a 10-8 lead after one period. But the Lady Gators went cold in the second quarter, scoring just two points on one field goal.

Holmes started to heat up at the end of the quarter, scoring the last five points for the Lady Raiders to help Warren East build a 17-12 halftime lead.

Holmes continued to have the hot hand to start the second half, adding four more points early to help extend the margin to 21-15. Holmes, who missed practice Friday while battling an illness, finished with 13 points and seven rebounds.

“I thought she played well,” Anderson said. “I told her before the ballgame that sometimes I played my best ball when I was sick and I thought she really came on and played hard.”

Greenwood cut the margin to 21-17 after a basket from Whitney Killebrew with 5:45 left in the third quarter, but the Lady Gators wouldn’t get any closer. Rainey keyed a 9-0 surge that put the Lady Raiders up 30-17, and the lead never dipped below double digits the rest of the way.

Greenwood coach Ken Waddell said post play was the difference.

“Our post players had been doing a better job the last three or four games, but tonight – even when Rainey went out for a two-minute, three-minute stretch – we didn’t capitalize on it,” Waddell said. “I knew we were in trouble then. My post players just weren’t getting it done.”

Anderson credited her guards for finding Rainey and Holmes.

“It takes a whole team for Ashley and Kate to put up numbers like that,” Anderson said. “I think our guards did a good job of beating the press and getting it to them where they could do something with it.”

With Saturday’s big night, Rainey moved past 2,500 career points and is now just 98 points away from the Warren East career scoring record set by Jamie Britt.

“Ashley doesn’t look at rankings and I don’t either,” Anderson said. “But when you have a Miss Basketball candidate, you’re kind of interested in where the rest of the state puts her. You look at her stats and what she’s done in 3 1/2 years. Not taking anything away from (Iroquois’ Adia Mathies, another Miss basketball candidate who is playing in the tournament) – she is a nice player, but Ashley tries to get her teammates involved and still puts up big numbers.”

Lauren Lamb and Molly Lamb had seven points each to lead the way for Greenwood.

The Lady Gators, who fell 53-43 to Princeton (Ohio) earlier Saturday, finished 0-2 in pool play and will advance to meet the loser of today’s game between Clay County and Green County on Monday at 3 p.m.

Warren East will play Princeton tonight at 7 p.m.

WEHS 8 9 15 15 – 47

GHS 10 2 9 12 – 33

WEHS – Rainey 24, Ray 2, Barnett 3, Holmes 13, Crain 1, Vincent 4.

GHS – L. Lamb 7, Johnson 2, Killebrew 6, Smith 3, M. Lamb 7, Wetzel 6, Bridges 2.