Not even a fire alarm could stop the Mehlville Senior High School girls’ basketball team from defeating Pacific 63-48 Friday night.

The Panthers (7-4, 1-2 Suburban West) were greeted with a surprise at halftime when the fire alarm went off at Pacific High School, forcing both teams and their fans out into single-digit temperatures for about five minutes.

The teams then stayed in the lobby for another 10 minutes before they were allowed to warm up in the gymnasium for the second half.

“What a crazy night,” Mehlville head coach Laura Bishop said. “I was worried about the kids standing outside in the cold weather and then having to come in and try to warm up for the game. You always worry about kids getting hurt because the cold weather can tense them up.”

The fire alarms continued to sound throughout the second half, causing four more stoppages in play. But that didn’t keep Mehlville’s Chanese Washington from scoring 20 points and six assists. She also recorded seven steals.

“Chanese did a great job finding open players on the floor,” Bishop said. “She was just a very good distributor in that game.”

Mehlville’s Erin Anderson also scored in double digits with 16 points and five rebounds. In addition, she recorded three steals and four assists with one blocked shot.

“Erin shot the ball really well,” Bishop said. “She did a great job in creating routes for herself. We put her on their best guard, and I thought that she did a great job.”

Stephanie Herbert rounded out the trio of Panthers to score in double figures, racking up 12 points and six rebounds.

“When Stephanie runs with Erin and Chanese, they’re able to produce a lot of baskets for her,” Bishop said. “She was also able to run the floor really well against Pacific.”

The Panthers return to action at 7 p.m. Friday when they play host to Parkway South. Parkway South (13-3, 4-0 Suburban West) started the season with an eight-game winning streak before losing two of its last four games. The Patriots fell 62-61 at Poplar Bluff Saturday.

“We don’t match up with Parkway South very well at all,” Bishop said. “We’re going to need to do things like move our defense to get a hand up into the face of their three-point shooter.”