In an eerie coincidence, the Pacific Union College Prep girls basketball team led Napa Christian 26-12 at halftime Thursday night.

Two weeks before, at home in Angwin, the Falcons had enjoyed a 26-11 halftime advantage — and a 36-21 lead after three quarters — before the Knights blanked them in the fourth quarter for an improbable 37-36 nonleague win.

“That was the most dismal thing,” PUC Prep coach Todd Thesman recalled. 

His daughter, MacKenzie Thesman, had missed that game for PUC Prep. But the junior was back on the floor this time, leading all scorers with 18 points as the Falcons routed Napa Christian, 51-26.

For the Falcons (3-8), it was the first win over Napa Christian (5-6) in three tries. The Knights had dominated the first meeting, 38-24, at the PUC Prep Invitational back on Dec. 1.

The 5-foot-11 Thesman — the little sister of two-time Napa County Boys Player of the Year Tyler Thesman — missed the second meeting between the teams because she was hospitalized with softball-sized cyst in her abdomen, according to her father, Todd Thesman.

She was definitely the difference this time, adding 14 rebounds and six assists to 6-foot teammate Jenna Glantz, who had 15 points.

Todd Thesman said a new full-court pressure defense was also key to the win. He said he put it in Wednesday in response to the Falcons’ previous game, a 63-14 loss at Tomales on Jan. 13.

“After we got trounced by Tomales, I said, ‘OK girls, we get full-court pressed every game, so you know what? Let’s full-court press these (Napa Christian) girls.’ So I just put it in practice yesterday,” the coach said. “I told them, ‘You see the way we panic against it and how teams take the ball away time and time again. You ought to know what they’re doing wrong, so you should steal it,’ and they did a pretty good job of that tonight. We wanted to get a few extra points to hopefully get some of my bench in.”

Senior guard Micaela Ballew, all 5-foot-4 of her, also cracked double figures for PUC Prep with 10 points. Kerry Juliano had four and Katelin Foster and Leya Helmer two apiece to round out the Falcons’ scoring.

Napa Christian was led by Elizabeth Carr and Amy Rivas with seven points apiece, while freshman Ashlee Churches was held under her team-high 8.8-point average with six. Morgan Frederick chipped in four points and Kimberly Byrne two.

Knights coach Darren Smith said the full-court press surprised his team.

“It was a little frustrating because we have a play to break the press, and the three times we ran it we scored, and the other times we forgot to run it,” Smith said. “We work on it every day in practice. But it’s really hard to beat the same team three times. They played well, we played poorly. They used their size to their advantage and we could not hang with that. The first time we played them I don’t think they were used to playing with each other, and the last game I think we surprised them. They figured out how to beat us tonight.”

Napa Christian visits Redwood Adventist in Santa Rosa on Saturday, and PUC Prep visits Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa on Tuesday.