Windsor — When the Windsor High boys basketball team endured a seven-game losing streak early in the season, coach Harry Ladue was not sure how the season would turn out.

“I just felt we had to grow up as a team and we’d get better,” Ladue said.

And did they get better.

With Wednesday night’s 60-36 win over Poultney in a Vermont Division III first-round game, the Yellowjackets have won nine in a row and will take a 13-8 record into Saturday’s 2 p.m. quarterfinal at home against Lake Region, an overtime winner over Thetford in its first-round game.

“It’s going to be tough,” Ladue said of Saturday’s opponent. “They have a player (Riley Yuri) who had 44 points in that game.”

While Windsor is young and doesn’t start a senior, the Blue Devils are even younger.

“At one time, we had an eighth-grader and two freshmen on the floor,” first-year coach Bob Coloutti said.

While Coloutti was not pleased with the defeat, he was pleased about one thing. “We’re going to Division IV next year and won’t have to play Windsor,” he said.

This year’s Windsor team has climbed the standings with defense and 3-point shooting.

“That’s been our staple all year,” said junior Seth Balch, who had a 19-point game that included four 3-pointers.

On Wednesday, Windsor had 10 3-point baskets and just nine 2-pointers. Robbie Slocum went one better than Balch with five 3-pointers as part of a 19-point night. Duncan Frazer also had a trifecta.

“We knew they can shoot the 3,” Coloutti said. “But it’s hard to put pressure on everybody.”

But the downfall for the Blue Devils came when they were unable to take care of the basketball.

“It’s been a problem all year,” said Coloutti. “We knew coming in we had to play a perfect game, and it just didn’t happen.”

The Devils certainly showed some spunk early as they took a 10-6 lead after one period. The Jacks were playing decent defense, but couldn’t hit the basket.

“The shots weren’t falling in the first quarter,” Windsor junior Ben Meagher said. “But we got it going in the middle two periods.”

That they did, as the Jacks outscored Poultney, 43-16, over the second and third periods.

“We were relentless on defense and made some shots,” Ladue said.

The game began swinging in Windsor’s favor in the early stages of the second quarter, when Windsor opened the period on a 13-0 run to start the rout.

Balch, who was off the mark in the first period, had an 11-point second period. In one 80-second stretch, Balch hit two 3s and Slocum added one.

All of a sudden, Windsor was leading 19-10 and never looked back.