Monroe’s Kayla Alexander shook her head and thought she was going to be in for a long night.

The junior guard air-balled her first two 3-pointers in the Hornets’ season opener at home against Middletown Christian, but heated up as the night went on, finishing with 20 points to lead Monroe to a 46-29 win.

“It was first game jitters,” Alexander said with a smile, whose Hornets won just four games a year ago. “I just had to take a couple of warm-up shots. Yeah, I thought it was going to be a long night.”

Alexander hit the first of her four treys with 3:44 left in the first quarter to give the Hornets a 5-2 lead. But Middletown Christian, behind four Makenzie Tolson points (12 for the game), closed with a 7-0 run to take a 9-5 lead after the first eight minutes.

“We did well until we started getting tired and they started swinging the ball around our zone,” Middletown Christian coach Brent Tolson said of his 0-1 Eagles. “We just could not get on their shooter (Alexander) … we couldn’t rotate and deny her the ball.”

Alexander wasn’t the only Hornet to heat up in the second period.

After Monroe went just 1-for-17 (5 percent) in the first quarter from the floor, it connected on half its shots in the second quarter to take a 23-15 lead into halftimek. Middletown Christian held onto an early three-point lead in the second quarter, 13-10. But the Hornets answered with a 13-2 run to close the quarter. Samantha Steele got the run started for the Hornets with a steal and a lay-up as five different Hornets got into the scoring column.

“We all had to step together as a team,” Alexander said. “Once we worked together and all our passes came together, our shots came.”

Monroe built the lead to 34-22 after three and Alexander ran off six straight points early in the fourth quarter before leaving with her 20 points, to go with four steals and three rebounds.

“She has an amazing length of talent,” Monroe first-year coach Harry Phillips said of Alexander. “She’s just not sure of herself yet. But once she gets in her flow, she can shoot with anybody.”

Hope Ethridge grabbed 22 rebounds as the Eagles out- boarded the Hornets 40-36.