The Hamilton Christian girls basketball team is young, but their coach says they are winning on relentless defense and aggressive offensive play.

“That’s a characteristic that we talked all year about,” Warriors head coach Mack Guillory said. “If we don’t establish anything this year, we want to establish the art of playing hard. And I think that we did establish that this year. That was our foundation. We felt that if we can establish playing hard, then we can build for the next few years.”

Since starting the season 2-6, the Warriors (14-9, 4-1) have since gone 12-3, including a dominant 59-41 win at home over District 4-1A favorite Merryville (21-6, 4-1) Tuesday night to force a three-way tie with the Panthers and Oberlin (19-13, 4-1) for the district title. It is the Warriors’ first district title since 2008.

Guillory attributed the Warriors’ recent surge to better play in the lane on defense and offense. Hamilton has held opponents to 45 or fewer points nine times in its last 15 games, and it was on display Tuesday when they limited the Panthers a season-low 41 points and 28.3 percent shooting.

They made it difficult in the paint, hounding the Panthers’ top shooters, center Miranda Williams and point guard Avery Cournoyer. They pressured the Panthers into 19 turnovers.

“I think one of our strengths is that we’re solid defensively,” Guillory said. “You know, they’ve really learned how to play solid man-to-man.

“They have picked up principles and continue to get better each and every game. It’s just a combination of continuing to improve, buying into what was taught, and also just being blessed with a group of talented girls.”

Sophomore Madison Williams (6-1), and eighth-graders Milah Ballou (5-11) and Maddie Mouton (6-0) used their height and athleticism to block a combined eight shots.

“Recently our inside players have just really developed,” Guillory said. “Maddie Williams has just really turned on over the last two or three weeks. She’s just really improved.

“We made a change at several positions.”

On the offense end, the Warriors thrive in the paint, whether posting up or slashing to the basket. They made one 3-pointer Tuesday and a handful of shots outside the lane.

“We had an inside game,” Guillory said. “We were just very immature early in the year. Not that we weren’t talented, not that we didn’t have size, just very inexperienced. And over the course of the season, they’ve just really grown very, very quickly. From the start of the year to this point in the year, talent has not been their problem.”

Ballou led the Warriors with 20 points and nine rebounds. Freshman guard Kayla Harding added 12 points and Mouton finished with 10 points and six rebounds.

“Milah Ballou has just been relentless at attacking the rim and getting to the basket,” Guillory said. “We’ve been getting quite a lot of really good looks close to the basket.

“Kayla Harding is one of the few kids that we did have with experience. Kayla Harding had a tremendous game (Tuesday). She really attacked the basket. She really started the run for us last night.”

The Warriors shot 54.4 percent, but Guillory said he would like to see more outside shooting as they prepare for the playoffs next week and try to add to back-to-back semifinal runs.

“We can always improve,” Guillory said. “We think that we can shoot a little better from outside.

“We’re going to be trying to tweak things. When you have a lot of younger kids, there’s still quite a bit that we can improve on, and this group is willing to improve. They come into the gym each and every day. They are gym rats. They love being in the gym.

“We don’t shoot a lot of 3-pointers. We’re normally an attacking type of team. We get out of transition to try to score easy buckets, but we can shoot when necessary.”