Until Wednesday night, that was the program’s last postseason win.

Nine different players scored and Bobcat girls basketball advanced into the next round for the first time in a long time with Wednesday’s 53-10 walloping of Des Moines East in the Class 5A Region 4 first-round game on George Funk Court.

The long-awaited regional triumph had to, well, wait a little longer after Des Moines East’s bus arrived 22 minutes after the scheduled tipoff time. Instead of the statewide 7 p.m. start time for regional girls basketball, Wednesday’s pairing tipped off at 8:01 p.m.

Once the wait was over, Marshalltown (9-13) made sure it stayed that way. The Bobcats stormed out to a 19-0 lead after the first quarter, led 30-1 at halftime, and breezed into the next round.

MHS will visit fourth-ranked Ankeny Centennial (14-7) on Saturday at 7 p.m., according to plan anyway.

“It was definitely a bizarre situation,” said Marshalltown head coach Brian Murphy. “We were on the other end of it going to Centennial three years ago, our bus broke down, so we’ve been on both sides of it. I thought our girls did a pretty good job coming out off the opening tip.”

The Bobcats bagged their sixth-straight win in the series with the Scarlets, who suffice it to say, never really got off the bus.

“We’ve had a few of these this season,” Murphy said of the lopsided win, “and what I’ve said to the girls all season is sometimes we just need to see the ball go through the net. Anytime we can get reps is a good thing, it’s just a matter of trying to transfer what we did today into a more competitive game.”

The Bobcats expect all of that and more from an Ankeny Centennial program they’ve not beaten in 12 tries. Marshalltown has never scored more than 29 points against the Jaguars.

On Wednesday night, MHS got more than that in the first half. The Bobcats took advantage of seven Des Moines East turnovers and fired out to a fast start. Kinsley Bowie scored all of her seven points in helping Marshalltown take a 13-0 lead midway through the first quarter, and it was a balanced effort from there on out.

“It felt like we hit a stretch of the season where our offense went wonky a little bit so we’re trying to get that back,” Murphy said. “We’re integrating players back in, so the big thing tonight was just trying to get everybody on the same page, try to get as best of an offensive flow established as we could going into Saturday knowing we’re going to have to put points up on the board to give ourselves a shot.

“I think when we’ve struggled on offense it’s because we’ve lacked rhythm.”

Frankie Long scored the first six points of the second half and finished with 10 to lead the Bobcats in the win. Morgan Hilderbrand made three 3-pointers for nine points, Sydney Kapayou added eight, Bowie and Amairra Johnson scored seven, Jorja Janssen got six, while Millie Heitmann, Ellie Hughes and Rubi Buenrostro Tejada tallied two apiece.

It marked the final home games for seniors Kapayou, Hughes and Buenrostro Tejada.

Hughes led the ‘Cats with nine rebounds, Kapayou had eight and Long seven. Heitmann’s night was accentuated by eight assists and five steals, and Janssen added four assists.

The Scarlets’ leading scorer Brooklyn Smith got all of her team-high five points in the fourth quarter, but East couldn’t overcome 25 turnovers.

Marshalltown 53, Des Moines East 10

DM EAST (3-19) — Da’Myra Lewis 0 0-0 0, Jaleeyah Hardy 1 1-2 3, Ma’lyah Rankins 0 0-0 0, Serenity Thompson 1 0-0 2, Araceli Aguilar 0 0-0 0, Abby Dalton 0 0-0 0, Brooklyn Smith 2 1-2 5, Abby Castle 0 0-0 0, Lauren Ziaty 0 0-0 0, Nyabuk Tuoch 0 0-0 0, Erin Anderson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 4 2-4 10.

MARSHALLTOWN (9-13) — Kinsley Bowie 2 1-4 7, Millie Heitmann 1 0-2 2, Jorja Janssen 2 2-2 6, Ellie Hughes 1 0-0 2, Frankie Long 5 0-1 10, Niah Lott 0 0-0 0, Amairra Johnson 3 1-2 7, Mallory Meyeraan 0 0-0 0, Morgan Hilderbrand 3 0-0 9, Sydney Kapayou 3 2-2 8, Rubi Buenrostro Tejada 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 21 6-13 53.

DM EAST 0 1 0 9 — 10

MHS 19 11 19 4 — 53

3-Point Goals–MHS 5 (Hilderbrand 3, Bowie 2). Team Fouls–DM East 11, MHS 7. Fouled Out–none.