Lowellville, Mathews set for sectional final

Chelsea Marrie had 17 points and 14 rebounds in her first start for the Rockets.

By DOUG CHAPIN

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

HUBBARD — Third-seeded Lowellville and Mathews posted very different victories Monday night in the first round of the Division IV girls basketball sectional tournament at Hubbard High. The two will meet Thursday at 7:45 p.m. with a district tournament berth on the line.

Mathews extended an 18-14 halftime lead to 30-17 after three quarters and remained in control throughout the final quarter of a 38-27 victory over Western Reserve.

Lowellville, playing its first game without the injured Ali Grapevine, survived what can only be called a sloppy 54-49 triumph over Youngstown Christian.

The Rockets (12-9) shot just 34 percent (21-of-62) from the floor, while Youngstown Christian (6-15) came in at 26 percent (18-of-69). The turnover numbers were not good. Lowellville committed 14 turnovers and gave up 26 steals to the Eagles. The Rockets had 20 steals of their own and also benefited from 21 Youngstown Christian turnovers.

“We knew that was the kind of game it was going to be, having seen them play,” Lowellville coach Anthony Matisi said. “We knew they were going to give our guards trouble. It seems like there are seven of them on the floor. We’re not good with pressure, we struggled with it all year.”

Youngstown Christian coach Dennis Malaska got the kind of tempo his team wanted, but the Eagles came up just short.

“We wanted to run and gun them and not get into a half-court game with them,” he said. “We just turned the ball over too much and missed too many shots underneath.”

Lowellville led 30-28 at halftime and 38-33 after an excruciating third quarter in which the teams combined to make just five of 34 shots (15 percent).

The Eagles caught up at 47-47 with 1:03 remaining after a three-point play by Chelsey Tate. Candace Kamensky scored for Lowellville, then Tate made it 49-49 with 39 seconds left on the clock. Senior guard Whitney Palumbo sank five of six free throws the rest of the way and Youngstown Christian missed its final three field goal attempts.

“Palumbo’s been fabulous,” Matisi said. “She’s a three-year starter, but has always been in the shadows. She stepped up in the last game against Wellsville when Ali got hurt and scored 32.”

The Rockets got a 17-point, 14-rebound performance from 5-foot-8 junior Chelsea Marrie, making her first varsity start because of the absence of the 6-foot-1 Grapevine.

“Marrie had never started before, she was a JV player, but she was our only option of getting a big body in there to help control the middle,” Matisi said. “She had a fabulous game.”

Kristin Meehan added 10 points and Jamie Hynes nine for the Rockets. Hynes also had seven rebounds, five assists and eight steals. Palumbo contributed seven points, three assists and three steals, and Kamensky had seven points and eight rebounds.

Senior forward Vickie Bankhead led all scorers with 20 points for Youngstown Christian and also made eight steals. Tate finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and six steals. Sara Bell had 14 rebounds and five steals and Savannah Hill collared eight rebounds for the Eagles.

Mathews defeated Western Reserve by 10 points in November. Mustang coach John Cicero said he’s been able to extend his bench since then, getting more girls into the game.

“We’re playing a lot more kids than we did the first time we met, trying to wear down our opponents, and we were focused tonight,” he said. “We weren’t playing well at the end of the regular season. We started out 6-1 and ended up 10-10 and that was frustrating. We lost three games by one point and lost five games in which we led going into the fourth quarter. We’ve been focusing on finishing games and it worked out tonight.”

Jill Armentrout led Mathews with 11 points and Lindsay Buckner added nine. Rachel Roscoe and Allie Stein grabbed seven rebounds each.

Western Reserve coach Scott Higgins said he was concerned with the Mustangs’ size and ability to score inside.

“We knew they were going to try to go inside on us, so we tried to take that away,” he said. “We did a good job defensively, I thought, controlling the middle.”

The Blue Devils held Mathews to 29 percent (11-of-38) shooting, but shot just 26 percent (9-of-34) themselves. Western Reserve also was hurt by 44 percent (8-of-18) free throw shooting, compared to Mathews’ 15-of-23 (65 percent) effort. Mathews also held a 30-17 edge on the boards.

“We played to our record tonight. Coming in, I thought we were one of the best 7-13 teams around,” Higgins said. “We had been a tough team to beat. We played Leetonia to a six-point game and McDonald to a three-point game.

“Offensively, we had been doing a very good job, but we struggled tonight against their pressure man-to-man. We were playing east and west instead of north and south. We weren’t taking the ball to the hoop.”