Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Tigers won for the third time this season over the Cowgirls, 58-33.
By CHUCK HOUSTEAU
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
AUSTINTOWN -- The Rayen School girls basketball team opened defense of its 2005 Division II district championship at Austintown Fitch High School with a 58-33 win Tuesday over Steel Valley Conference rival Chaney.
After defeating the Cowgirls in the regular season by scores of 72-28 and 74-35, the third-seeded Tigers (14-7) had a tougher time than expected.
Rayen had a slim lead, 12-11, after the first quarter before slowly pulling away to the opening-round win.
The Tigers advance to play Ashtabula Edgewood Saturday at 2 p.m. at Fitch.
"I think the girls were way to comfortable coming in here knowing that we had beaten Chaney twice before," Rayen coach Tanisha Franklin said. "I think we thought like we didn't have to clock in and come to work today.
"I told [the team] this is the playoffs and anything can happen," Franklin said. "Good teams lose in the playoffs when they get comfortable."
Franklin said that the game turned when the Tigers decided to start playing defense.
Turnovers costly
Rayen forced Chaney into committing 43 turnovers, including 27 in the first half which kept the Cowgirls from mounting any threat after the first quarter.
"We didn't do a very good job of taking care of the basketball," Chaney coach Dennis Miller said. "I thought we played a nice gimmick defense in the first quarter that confused Rayen for awhile but then we turned the ball over way too often."
Chaney's 14 second quarter turnovers led to a Rayen rally fueled by easy breakaway baskets by sophomore Brittney Taylor who made all five of her layups for 10 of her 16 points in the period.
Kenysha Tennant-Beachum also had eight of her game-high 23 points in the second frame as Rayen outscored the Cowgirls 22-10 to lead 34-21 at the break.
Defense prevails
The third quarter was decisive for Rayen as its defense limited Chaney to two points in the period.
"I always preach to the girls that defense wins games," Franklin said. "Good defense leads to easy baskets and that was very evident for us tonight."
Rayen also controlled the boards and outrebounded Chaney, 43-37. Danielle Liggins grabbed 13 rebounds while Tennant-Beachum corraled eight boards and handed out eight assists.
Chaney (5-15) was limited to 11 field goals but got a nice effort from senior Brittany Cobb who had 11 points and eight rebounds.
"I think we were trying to do too much offensively," Miller said. "We tried to make the extra pass too often when we should have taken open shots."
Need to play better
Franklin said that the Tigers will have to play much better on Saturday if they hope to advance in the tournament.
"We've started games slowly all year," Franklin said. "In the playoffs you can't play catch-up or you will be in for a long night.
"We have to come out of the gate stronger and play good basketball right from the start against [Ashtabula] Edgewood."