Through the first 11 games of the season, perfection has obediently followed Guilford College’s women’s basketball team. The Quakers are 11-0 and off to their best start in school history, but that obedience is about  to be tested.

The Quakers and Old Dominion Athletic Conference rival Randolph-Macon College play at 7 pm Wednesday and the Yellow Jackets (8-3) will show up at Ragan-Brown Field House carrying size, patience and the season’s first real interrogation.

Guilford’s impressive start is the best since the Quakers started the 2016-17 season 7-0. Even coach Sarah Mathews didn’t see this coming, not with so many holes to fill.

Half of Guilford’s 14-woman roster is new to the program. “When you have seven athletes who are brand new to the program, I really didn’t know what to expect,” says Sarah.

Neither, it turns out, did Briahna Scott ’27, the only junior on the team.

“Honestly, I am surprised,” Briahna says. “I wasn’t expecting for us to come out this way. But I’m also really proud of our team for how we have come out so far – playing together, winning games – which is the expectation.”

Surprise, in this case, does not mean accidentally. It means a process unfolding faster than anticipated. What emerged since the first practice in the fall through 11 games has been balance, the kind that resists scouting reports and frustrates opponents’ assumptions.

If the first 11 games are proof, the Quakers can score from anywhere and anyone. Anna Giannopoulou ’26 leads the team, averaging 14.9 points a game followed by Brihana at 14.5. Juliana Walter ‘26 is averaging 10.5 points. Evelyn George ‘29 is averaging 9.5 points and Markayla Massenburg ‘26, 9.2 points.

“We’ve had extremely balanced scoring,” Sarah says. “We’ve had multiple games with different leading scorers.” She paused, then added the coach’s quiet conclusion: “I think we’re really tough to scout because of that.”

Guilford does not choreograph possessions with heavy sets or designated saviors. “That’s not us,” Sarah says. “We just kind of have some basic concepts offensively. We try to push in transition and just make the right read.” The right read changes nightly. That ambiguity has become its own clarity.

Anna, who was named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) Division III National Player of the Week and has twice been named the ODAC’s player of the week this season, supplies steadiness to that freedom. Healthy again after an uneven junior season, Anna shapes games in ways that don’t always announce themselves.

“So many things that aren’t even in the stat box,” Sarah says. “Leadership – she’s a phenomenal defender, just so many ways that aren’t measured in stats.”

This year Sarah and her staff have decided to track deflections. “We actually tally in practice and in games how many deflections we can get,” she says. “Anna gets a million deflections each game.”

Six or seven officially, enough to warp possessions and pace. She rebounds better than last year, shoots the three comfortably now, but her imprint remains defensive first, says Sarah.

If Anna steadies, Briahna unsettles. The junior has become a presence opponents sense before they see. “We call her a defensive disrupter,” Sarah says.

Briahana, this week’s ODAC player of the week, embraces the label without embellishment. “I think just like continuing to do what I’ve been doing on defense,” she says, “especially deflections, which is something that we really harp on in practice.” It’s not theory. In the last game against Piedmont University, Sarah’s nine steals were one shy of a Guilford single-game record. “Her impact has been huge,” Sarah says.

Briahna points to collective reasons for the Quakers’ impressive start. “Just everyone — the entire staff, the coaches, the players — the way that we have come together as a team,” she says. “Working hard each day in practice, just overall.”

That work is visible in the details, including the tape. Purple tape. Sarah and her staff put taped purple boxes around the practice court in the fall.

“She loves to put different pieces of tape and areas around the court,” Briahna says of her coach. The most famous is the box beneath the rim — roughly four by three feet — where every possession must go before anything else happens.

A shot can not be taken without first getting a touch down low. Sarah says posting down by the net opens the opportunity outside more. “We can’t get any other shot until we get that,” she says. “It seems really small, but it’s actually helped us a lot this year.”

Defensively, Guilford measures itself by pressure. “Ball pressure is really, really important to us,” Sarah says. “Deflections, forcing turnovers.” The math is blunt. “Within a quarter, if we don’t have 10 deflections, we’re probably not winning.” From there, the Quakers want to run.

“That’s what we do best,” Briahna says. “Pushing the ball up the court, transition baskets, pressing.”

Randolph-Macon, which won the ODAC Tournament and advanced three rounds in the NCAA Tournament last season, offers contrast. “They’re always big,” Sarah says. “They want to dump the ball inside.” Guilford wants speed. “We want it to be a track meet,” she says. “It’s a tale of two totally different systems.”

The Quakers have adjusted their preparation accordingly. This season the team is watching less opponent film and more of themselves. “When we’re not so focused on what the other team is doing,” Briahna says, “we can hone in on what we do best.”

Wednesday’s game will show just how far the Quakers have come this season.