WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- The UCM Mules basketball team won its first home game of the regular season Saturday night against the Westminster Blue Jays, 82-48, and Mules head coach Kim Anderson was pleased overall with the first win of the season.

“I think that your first game is always important,” Anderson said. “I think that is important that you come out and play well, and I thought we did.”

The game started slow for the Mules earlier on with the teams scoring right after each other. Westminster got its only lead of the night in the beginning of the first half, 8-7.

It was short-lived, however, as Joe Young brought UCM back. He sunk a field goal and then hit two three-point shots to put his team at their biggest lead at the time, 17-12. Young had a good half hitting 4-9 field goals and was 2-6 on three point shots.

“After the first few minutes we were a little rough around the edges, but I thought we played pretty well for the most part,” Anderson said.

Another key player of the game was Josiah Miller, who was the player of the game. He was 6-7 on field goals and made all three of his three-point shots that came in the first half. He too, talked about the team’s rough start.

“I believe that everybody was a little nervous coming out because it was the first game at home,” Miller said. “But, once we got the butterflies out of our stomach we got things going.”

The Mules’ defense became a big factor in the game. The team collected 17 steals, 13 of which occurred in the second half, compared to only three steals by the Blue Jays. Tyler Richardson and Byrd De’ Andre led the team in steals with four each. Miller was close behind them with three steals.

When asked about the thing that got his team going, Miller said that it was the defense.

“Defense is the key,” Miller said. “We have to play tough defense and force turnovers, and that’s what we did.”

Anderson was pleased with the way his team played defensively.

“One of the things we wanted to do was come out and try to play aggressive defensively,” Anderson said. “We got good help off of the bench. This is a team that has more than five guys that deserve to start.”

Though Anderson was happy with the win, he talked about some of the things that he thinks the team can work on.

“Offensively, I still think we need to work on our execution,” Anderson said. “We need to be more balanced inside and outside. We got guys on the inside that can score, but we need to do a good job of getting it inside. We got a lot to work on. We have a long way to go, but I like our start.”

Anderson also showed some concern about the game on Wednesday against Monmouth at 7 p.m.

“The game Wednesday against Monmouth will be a game against some guys that can shoot the basketball very, very well," Anderson said. "Usually, their whole team shoots the basketball. It will require some of our big guys going up and covering on the floor, which we have been doing on our exhibition games and even tonight.”