MAC Howland musters 'must-win' game

Patience keyed the Tigers past Salem.
By GARY HOUSTEAU
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HOWLAND -- Patience isn't just a virtue, it was the main ingredient Saturday that helped the Howland High girls basketball team defeat Salem 53-40.
"I told the girls we were not going to try to run with Salem; we needed to be patient," Howland coach John Diehl said. "I thought we worked the ball around real well, reversing it around, and we kept to the game plan and stayed patient."
Slow start: Neither Metro Athletic Conference team got off to a great start shooting-wise and at the end of the first quarter Howland led 8-7.
"We got off to a sluggish start, but that's nothing new," Salem coach Steve Stewart said. "We had some okay looks but couldn't knock them down.
"We were out of sync the entire first half and we were still in the game," Stewart said. "But we had every opportunity in the second half and still didn't get it done."
Behind the hot shooting of Emily Andrews in the second quarter, the Tigers increased their lead to six at the half, 27-21. Andrews hit on 4 of 6 shots with two 3s in the period for 11 points.
Despite leading all scorers in the game with 15, Andrews might have been doing her best work on the defensive end, holding Salem's Alyson Cotter to two field goals in the first half.
Strategy: Howland's game plan on defense was centered around stopping the prolific-scoring sophomore and Andrews drew the rather arduous assignment.
"On defense, we stressed stopping Alyson Cotter," Diehl said. "She's not only a great shooter, but she's probably the best athlete on the court.
"Emily has been our best defensive player for three years and tonight she was able to stop her."
Cotter finished with 10 in the game, hitting two 3-pointers in the second half and added eight rebounds to lead Salem in both categories.
The Howland offense came out of the locker room strong after the half, led by Marianne Krezeczowski, who scored 10 of her 14 points in the second half.
Howland used a 14-2 run to start the fourth quarter to take a 50-31 lead, its largest of the game with 2:50 remaining in the contest.
The unsung hero for the Tigers, however, just may have been Kristina Ferenac, who finished the game with eight points but recorded 11 rebounds.
As a team Howland out-rebounded Salem 27-23 and had 12 damaging rebounds on their offensive end.
Stewart was disappointed in his young team's performance coming off a non-league loss to Hubbard but didn't want to take any of the credit away from Howland for earning the win.
"Give them credit for doing what they had to do," he said. "They played a nice game, they spread it out and we didn't rotate, allowing Marianne Krezeczowski and a couple of their girls to dribble between two or three of us for easy shots or lay-ins."
Must-win: According to Diehl, it was an important victory for Howland (5-1), which improved to 1-1 in the conference with the win, while Salem (6-4) dipped to 1-1.
"It was a must win for us," Diehl said. "It's tough to start out in the conference 0-2 and have any chance to win the league."
Salem freshman Sarah Hamilton scored eight point of the bench, and Abby Markovich added six points and six rebounds for the Quakers.