By NICK McQUEEN

nmcqueen@dailynews.net

ULYSSES -- Thomas More Prep-Marian freshman Rachel Jacobs' "best game of the year" probably couldn't have come at a better time.

Monarch coach Alan Billinger was a little worried about the physical matchup the the Thomas More Prep-Marian girls' basketball team would would face against Ulysses, a team that boasts a great deal of size in the paint, on Friday.

Jacobs answered the challenge by scoring 16 points and pulling down 16 rebounds for the double-double, adding a punctuation mark on junior Kaylee Hoffman's 20-point performance in a 49-36 win over the Tigers in Mid-State Activities Association action.

"This undoubtedly was her best game of the year," Billinger said of Jacobs, who went 6-of-10 from the floor and 3-of-5 from the free throw line.

A pesky Ulysses team (4-4 overall, 1-2 MSAA) had the unbeaten Monarchs off their game all night, but Jacobs provided a consistency on the glass and in the paint.

"She did a great job on the boards, especially on the defensive boards, cleaning up in there for us," Billinger said. "She also shot the ball well from the outside."

The performance came on a night where TMP-Marian (7-0, 2-0) missed a great deal of easy shots inside and was 11-of-19 from the foul line. In the first half, where TMP-Marian struggled to a 25-17 lead, the Monarchs missed eight shots under the basket.

"Our free throw shooting was not good," Billinger said. "Between our free throw shooting and our little shots right unde the bucket -- we missed so many."

Despite the early struggles, Hoffman was able to reach her season average, going 5-for-9 from the free throw line and 1-for-3 from 3-point range to finish with 20 against the physical play of Ulysses.

"They're not only pretty good, but very physical,"  Billinger said of the TIgers. "I was worried coming in because of their physicality. I knew we were going to have a tough time.

"We are more of a finesse team," Billinger added. "We can play a little physical, but not that physical."

Hoffman missed her first two shots before hitting two in a row, but at one point missed five straight shots before finishing the night 7-for-16 from the floor.

"One of the problems is Kaylee has a real mental block about that right now,"  Billinger said. "If she doesn't get out and hit that first shot right under the bucket, she is just struggling, and she knows it.

"Thank goodness she had a good game for us tonight, though," Billinger added. "She played really hard and we had some foul trouble."

The Monarchs only used six players, with senior Alicia Hammeke, playing in just her second game of the season, coming off the bench.

TMP-Marian didn't lead by double digits until the third quarter when Jacobs put back an offensive rebound to make it 27-17, and junior Jessa Stramel made it a 12-point game, but Ulysses hung around until the end, at one point narrowing the lead back to single digits.

Similar to last season, the Monarchs were never able to spread the gap.

The 5-foot-8 and 5-9 frames of Ulysses senior Kayla Degollado and freshman Kaylea Britton caused problems all night. The two combined for eight points and seven rebounds.

"She's a force inside,"  Billinger said of Britton, a talented freshman he said will be a great player for the Tigers in the future. "She gets up and down the court for as big as she is, and really does a good job."

TMP-Marian will play host to Abilene Tuesday in a nonleague game.

Game notes

*  Ulysses finished with just 11 turnovers, 14 under its season average, and had 28 rebounds. Hoffman added seven rebounds to the Monarchs' total of 40.

*  The 16 rebounds by Jacobs was the most by a Monarch this season.

*  Ulysses junior Janni Meierhoff, the Tigers' leading scorer at 9.7 points per game, was held to just three on the night, a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter. Meierhoff didn't attempt a shot until the third quarter and finished 1-for-8 from the floor.