Millan repeatedly strolled to the charity stripe in the first half of Friday night’s non-conference game against Lena and the 5-foot-8-inch sophomore hit 15 of 16 of her opportunities to help the Ladycats build a 22-point lead on their way to a 57-43 victory at Florence High School.

Millan sank four more in the second half to finish 19 of 20 from the line as she stuffed the scoresheet again with 29 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists.

“I told her, ‘You had to miss one? C’mon,'” Florence coach Brad Perry joked. “Actually we’ve been kind of hounding her a little bit in practice because her percentage is down from what it was last year, when it was about 74 percent. She did a really good job of focusing tonight.”

The irony of Millan’s free throw shooting performance was that she was stone cold from the floor, hitting just 4 of 27 shots.

Florence senior forward Kiera Sullivan (10) sets a pick to free up a teammate for a potential shot during the first half of the Ladycats’ 57-43 win in front of the home fans Friday night.

The Ladycats (9-4) rode Millan’s 15 first-half free throws to a 33-11 lead heading into the locker room. In the second half, the Wildcats picked up their play significantly, outscoring Florence 32-24, but their deficit was just too large to overcome.

Besides, the Ladycats received other offensive contributions from freshman Kamden Johnson and sophomore Victoria Peterson, who both totaled 12 points, and senior Audrey Selden, who added a couple of perimeter buckets.

Florence is an interesting team to behold offensively. Nearly every set goes through Johnson and Millan, but the other Ladycats seem fine with the whole thing and often step up when defenses forget about them.

“Offensively we talk about reading the defense and then not doing anything that you’re not capable of doing,” Perry explained. “And I don’t ask the girls to do anything they are not capable of doing.

“(And) the team chemistry is just great. They are excited for each other. They accept the roles that they have. And we know we have to have other girls who are going to step in and be comfortable to contribute. And we’re starting to see them have make plays, which is really, really exciting.”

After trailing by 22 at the break, Lena cut the Florence advantage to 14 a couple of times in the second half, including with just over nine minutes to play. But Peterson sank three straight buckets to restore her team’s 20-point advantage and take away any chance of a wild Lena comeback.

In the end, Perry was quite impressed with his team’s play.

“I just told the girls it was probably the most complete game we’ve played,” he said. “We were very strong with the basketball tonight. They put a lot of pressure on our guards but we shot 20 for 21 at the free throw line and we were strong with the ball (Florence had 10 turnovers) and that’s a recipe for a win.”

Jerry DeRoche can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 247, or at jderoche@ironmountaindailynews.com.