The Suffolk Lady Storm tangled with a team from Chesapeake last year on its way to winning the Virginia Cities Fall Basketball League.

Though significantly different in composition this year, Suffolk and Chesapeake teams faced off again on Saturday with a familiar victor. The Lady Storm pulled away for a 38-11 victory at Creekside Recreation Center.

“It’s really two different teams in the sense that we’ve both gotten tremendously younger,” Suffolk coach Tom Lewis said, comparing the squads to their 2013 counterparts.

Each team has only a few returners, and Lewis said he knew the Lady Storm would at least play even with Chesapeake.

Evaluating his team, Lewis said, “I thought the performance defensively, especially in the second half, was really, really good.”

He cited this defense and also the offensive play of seventh-grader Makaylen Davis as the deciding factors in the game.

“Makaylen Davis, in the first half of that game, had a breakout performance shooting the ball,” Lewis said. She scored 11 of the team’s 14 first half points, giving it an eight-point lead at halftime.

This contribution was significant, because the Lady Storm were shorthanded. Eighth-grader Nylah Young, who has been a key to Suffolk’s success this year, was not able to make it, and eighth-grader Neecole Brown could only stay for the first half due to a prior engagement.

“Definitely getting a lift from (Makalyen) was key, because knowing that Neecole wasn’t going to play in the second half, I didn’t know what I was going to get from anybody else,” Lewis said.

Other members of the raised their defensive games to help Suffolk pull away.

“I think the defense gave us some confidence to make some shots,” Lewis said. “They actually played better in the second half, and I was impressed with that.”

Chesapeake’s returning players help form its front court, but they were quite limited on Saturday.

“We just made it hard for (Chesapeake) in terms of a little bit of ball pressure in the back court,” Lewis said. “They couldn’t get in the front court and take advantage of their matchups that they had.”

When Chesapeake adjusted its method of getting the ball down the court, putting a player in the middle, Lewis was pleased with how quickly his players adapted their defense to counter.

Among Suffolk’s defensive standouts were seventh-graders Aleemah Johnson, Tatianna Johnson and Lanae Stokes, and the trio also combined for 16 points in the second half.

Davis led the Lady Storm with 17 points for the game.

Suffolk (4-1) faces Portsmouth 2 on Saturday at Creekside Recreation Center with an 11 a.m. tip-off.