New London — Sometimes, the more the game gets messy, the more it favors New London, an ardent tipper of passes and blocker of shots. A defensive stalwart, New London allowed only one point through the first 5 minutes, 52 seconds Tuesday.

In this case, however, the Whalers could have used being a little calmer a little faster.

New London High School's girls' basketball team, seeded third, opened play in the Class LL state tournament with a 58-38 victory over No. 30 Wilton, advancing to the second round against No. 14 E.O. Smith at 7 p.m. Friday in New London.

The Whalers led 17-5 after one quarter, getting seven consecutive points by Spencer Roman to make it 9-1 en route to a 14-1 lead.

Soon, though, a little chaos by a persistent Wilton team and a 3-pointer by the Warriors' Claire Gulbin helped carve into New London's lead significantly. Wilton pulled within seven on Gulbin's 3 with 1:23 left in the second quarter and the Whalers led just 25-18 at halftime.

"That's a tough team to match up against. They don't have any post players and their 6-foot-1 player is a guard," New London coach Holly Misto said. "They spread it out on us. We weren't moving our feet as well as we were the other night.

"It was too unorganized. Our post players didn't know who to cover. ... We're much better with our post players in the post."

New London showed its polish late, however, beginning with a pass zipped across the middle, right to left, from one future Division I player to another, Jada Lucas to India Pagan, resulting in a Pagan layup with 3:13 to play and a 15-point Whalers lead.

Pagan hit a left-handed layup and Lucas followed with two driving layups, the second one resulting in a three-point play, lengthening the lead to 19.

Lucas finished with 17 points, five steals and five assists and Pagan with 12 points, 22 rebounds, three steals and four blocked shots. Roman had nine points and Rosie Nicholson eight. Tai Pagan added six rebounds and three blocks. New London had 16 steals overall.

It was the Whalers' first game in Class LL after moving up from Class L, where they played in the championship game a year ago.

"Our coach wasn't very happy with our defense. We didn't play good defense, but it's all going to come together," Lucas said. "... This was a wake-up call (in Class LL). Freshman year we were in Class M, then sophomore year and last year we were in Class L. It's tougher competition every year. We just have to put all our talents together. We'll be fine."

The Whalers (22-2), ranked third in the state in the latest GameTimeCT/New Haven Register Top 10, have used defense as their calling card, including a win in last week's Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I tournament over seventh-ranked Norwich Free Academy.

Once Tuesday, when Wilton uncorked an uncontested 3-pointer in the first quarter, Misto replaced the defender, even though the defense had yet to give up a basket.

"When I mess up, I just make up for it the next play," said Lucas of getting the game back under more comfortable control against Wilton. "It gets better over the years. ... We have to have a better game (Friday) and just play better."

"Win ugly, win pretty ... a win is a win," Misto said. "We're still holding teams to 38 points. I don't think any of our players played exceptionally tonight, but they gutted it out."

v.fulkerson@theday.com