On most other nights, if Kenisha Bell's first field goal of the game for the Bloomington Kennedy girls' basketball team came inside of 30 seconds to play it might be considered a woeful ending. Friday at Lakeville North, her layup off a steal was merely an afterthought, though it marked the final bucket of a signature victory.

Bell, a Gophers recruit, didn't rack up the points she's used to but her floor presence and heads-up passes certainly helped fuel a 56-47 South Suburban Conference road triumph for the Eagles.

"We made it work using the whole court and using our whole bench," Kennedy coach Percy Wade said. "We kept the pressure on the whole night and shot well."

The combination was too much to overcome for the Panthers (7-5), who lost their grip on a lead in the conference for the first time in 37 games.

Sharing the wealth was the name of the game for Kennedy, just not from who you might think.

Bell (who averages 11 points per game) and Georgetown recruit Jade Martin (15.5) were held to a combined three points at the half, yet the Eagles roared out to a 31-17 lead.

In addition to costly turnovers and sloppy misses, Lakeville North also was plagued by foul trouble in the first half. The Panthers put Kennedy into the 1-and-1 bonus just 5 minutes, 27 seconds in and the Eagles feasted.

Heather Bachman, a 6-4 center, was a force with her back to the basket under the net.

She tallied the first six points of the game for Kennedy -- four of them coming from the free-throw line -- en route to a 14-point night.

"She's our backbone," said sophomore guard Tonoia Wade, who finished with a game-high 18 points, including 15 off three-pointers.

"Our go-to player down there. We know she can hit those shots even if she's getting hammered [in the paint]," Wade said. "That's our girl."

Wade declared the entire starting lineup as the team's "leading scorer" but wasn't ready to celebrate too much just yet.

"It's not March," she said. "Our expectation here was to win. But it will mean a lot more down the road."