Leopards go down to wire in 62-55 win

Chagrin Falls Kenston knocked off Cardinal Mooney, 45-40.

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

AUSTINTOWN — The Poland High girls basketball team won only four games all season but that didn’t stop the Bulldogs from taking the third-seeded Liberty Leopards down to the wire in the Division II sectional tournament Monday night.

The Bulldogs (4-17), who were seeded 12th in the tournament, trailed Liberty (15-6) by just four points with 1:27 left in the contest before falling to the Leopards 62-55.

In the night’s opening contest, No. 7 seed Chagrin Falls Kenston knocked off Cardinal Mooney 45-40.

Kenston and Liberty will play in a sectional final Thursday at 6 p.m.

“Give credit to Poland,” said Liberty coach John Hritz. “We haven’t been playing well to close out the season and that Poland team wouldn’t quit.”

It looked like the Leopards finally got their act together in the third quarter after only leading 28-24 at halftime.

Senior Brittany Armour, who led the Leopards with 22 points and junior Melissa Dykes fueled a strong third quarter to push the Liberty lead out to 10 points, 35-25.

Dykes scored eight of her 17 points in the quarter to pace Liberty.

Brianna Pettway also tallied 10 points for the Leopards.

Liberty pushed the lead to 14 points at 49-35 on a basket by Armour early in the third quarter but Poland came roaring back.

The Bulldogs went on a 15-5 run behind the strong play of Michelle Benson and Julie Berend.

Sophomore Leanna Yeager also had an impressive game while scoring 17 points and pulling down 11 rebounds.

“Our play has been better as the season progressed,” said Poland coach Debbie Paine. “We wanted to focus on the fact that we don’t quit.

“We wanted to leave an impression on the floor that we don’t quit and I am proud of the girls for displaying that tonight.”

Paine said that the four wins is deceiving because the Bulldogs were competitive playing a very tough Metro Athletic Conference schedule.

Hritz was happy that his team pulled things together to grab the win.

“I think we need to get back into that nice flow we had when we reeled off 10 wins in a row,” Hritz said. “Tonight we made some mistakes that could have hurt us.

“We are going to have to play a lot better than tonight if we are going to beat Kenston.”

In the opener, eighth-seeded Cardinal Mooney (11-10) fell behind by 14 points at 28-14 to the Bombers before staging an impressive rally that nearly netted a victory.

“I hate to end it this way,” said Mooney coach Jack Bermann. “First round and out again.

“We didn’t put the ball in the basket when we had to in the first half.”

Mooney scored just 14 points on 13-of-31 shooting from the field in the first two periods against a tough zone defense employed by the Bombers.

Kenston relied on a balanced offensive attack led by Liz Holzheimer and Megan Cardamna who each scored 10 points.

The Cardinals rallied in the third quarter behind the hot shooting of Dayna Daltorio who scored nine of her 18 points in the period.

Daltorio also pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.

Mooney outscored Kenston 15-9 to get back into the game.

In the fourth quarter, the Cards cut the Kenston lead to 37-35 on a basket by Sara Pelini but that was as close as Mooney would get.

Pelini finished with 11 points while junior Katie Hughes added seven.