Tyra Grant and Courtney Schiffauer accounted for 57 of the game's points.

Tyra Grant and Courtney Schiffauer accounted for 57 of the game's points.
By JOHN BASSETTI
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN -- It could have been billed as the Daytona 500 after-show, but it turned out to be the Tyra Grant and Courtney Schiffauer show.
With a 6:30 p.m. Sunday tip-off, the Ursuline vs. Boardman girls basketball game served as a dessert to the day's big auto race in Florida.
But the two quality teams provided plenty of excitement of their own at the Ursuline gym, where the Irish prevailed 68-52.
The regular-season finale came a day after Boardman beat Akron Ellet in a Division I tournament opener.
Sunday's game, originally scheduled on Saturday, was switched to accommodate Boardman's postseason opener.
Grant scored 32 points to lead Ursuline (16-4), while Schiffauer poured in 25 points for Boardman (14-7).
All-time scorer
Grant's total gave her 2,080 career points to put her ahead of Courtney Davidson as Ursuline's all-time leading scorer -- boys or girls.
Davidson -- who graduated two years ago -- had 2,066. Grant now stands No. 3 among the area's all-time girls scorers, behind Canfield's Jenny Kulics (2,114) and Boardman's Amber Bland (2,190).
Ursuline's lead reached as many as 18 points at 39-21, but the Spartans battled back to pull within eight (50-42).
"We had foul trouble the whole game and [April] Melquist and Schiffauer played with four fouls in the third quarter," Boardman coach Ron Moschella said of his two big girls. "That makes it tough for us," he added. "If Melquist goes out of the game, you really have a difficult time playing.
"We had to stop Tyra Grant and we just couldn't do that. She made the difference in the game."
Melquist did foul out with 4:50 remaining in the game and Schiffauer played aggressively, yet cautiously the rest of the way.
Melquist was the game's only other player in double figures with 10 and the senior also grabbed five of Boardman's 16 rebounds.
Ursuline had 27 rebounds, eight of which were pulled down by Grant.
"She's a very good player, but I feel I handled myself accordingly," Grant said of her play against Schiffauer, only a sophomore.
The coverage
"I did what I had to do -- boxing her out, getting rebounds and basically staying in her face constantly and beating her to different spots. I was able to turn her when she dribbled. I feel like I did an OK job with her."
About getting 32 points and school milestone, Grant said: "I'm excited but I don't think about things like that going into the game. When it happens, it happens. I can't wait for the tournament."
Grant, who was averaging 30 points, sat briefly at the outset of the fourth quarter when Boardman's comeback was in progress. Then Ursuline coach Sean Durkin called a timeout with 6:33 left and Grant returned.
"I don't like to sit out very long, so I take a quick break, get a little water, stretch my legs and I'm back in."
Schiffauer, too, spoke respectfully of Grant, but the Irish proved to be too much of a problem to solve.
"She's a good player, don't get me wrong, but I was frustrated at some points," she said. "But you've just got to snap out of it and keep playing and trying different stuff -- like figuring out how to score and things like that."
She said her coach's halftime message revolved around playing hard and digging deep for fortitude.
"He said that we can't give up," Schiffauer said. "We were motivated and tried as hard as we could and got within eight."
Ursuline coach
Durkin was more pleased with his team's defense in the first half than the second half.
"We kind of limited their looks and didn't give them any second-shot opportunities and that allowed our transition game to get going in the first half," he said.
His offensive plan was for the Irish to spread Boardman's defense out, then attack the basket.
"Boardman is long, but we probably had a little bit of a quickness advantage," he said. "So we tried to spread them out as much as we could and we tried to attack the basket using our athleticism. I think we were pretty successful doing that. But Boardman did a great job switching defenses to keep us guessing."
Colleen Mallis had nine points on three 3-pointers for Boardman, which made 17 of 39 goals to Ursuline's 26 of 50 goals.