Over the past four games, the Mehlville Senior High School girls’ basketball team has scored an average of 64 points, nearly seven points more than the team’s 57.7 points-per-game average last season.

“I don’t know what’s in the water, but I’m going to keep drawing it from the same well,” Mehlville head coach Ed Feibig joked. “We’re really not doing anything dif-ferent. Teams try to take away one player and then somebody else steps it up.”

The Panthers (21-1, 6-0 Suburban West) throttled Francis Howell North 63-34 Saturday night in the championship game of the St. Francis Borgia Invitational in Wash-ington.

Mehlville’s Kayla Gordon led the Pan-thers with 18 points and six rebounds.

The junior guard also racked up five assists and four blocked shots in the win over the Knights.

“Kayla was in the zone,” Feibig said. “Her defense has really stepped up and that I think has really opened things up for her. I couldn’t be happier with her right now.”

Alyse Gordon of the Panthers also had an outstanding evening with a 17-point performance that included seven assists. The junior forward also recorded five rebounds and two steals against Howell North.

“Alyse did most of her damage in the se-cond half,” Feibig said. “She’s really been working hard at creating space for her shot off the dribble and it’s beginning to pay off.”

Junior forward Laquisha Lewis scored 17 points for the Panthers, while also re-cording three blocked shots, two steals and one assist.

“Laquisha’s play has been pretty consistent all year long,” Feibig said. “They (Fran-cis Howell North) pretty much left her open and you just can’t do that with her.”

The Panthers are back in action at 7 p.m. Friday when they play host to Lafayette in a pivotal Suburban West Conference meeting between the two schools.

Mehlville sits atop the conference standings with a 6-0 mark, while Lafayette sports a record of 12-8 overall with a 2-2 mark in league play.

The Panthers will need to seal up the conference championship with a win over Lafayette after playing Kirkwood and Parkway North earlier in the week — after the Call went to press.

“Lafayette has three excellent post players that can play basketball,” Feibig said. “This game is going to be won out at the guard’s level.”