Friday, February 15, 2008
The Cardinals beat
Streetsboro 87-31, but
the Leopards lost to Kenston, 66-59.
By CHUCK HOUSTEAU
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
AUSTINTOWN — Canfield High girls basketball coach Pat Pavlansky said the Cardinals have been ready for tournament play since preseason workouts began.
The Cardinals showed how ready they were with an impressive 87-31 victory over Streetsboro in their first game of the Division II sectional basketball tournament Thursday night at Austintown Fitch.
Canfield (18-2) advanced to the district semifinals Feb. 21 at 7:30 to face the Kenston Bombers.
Kenston (12-10) upset third-seeded Liberty 66-59 in the night’s opening game but not before the Leopards rallied in the fourth quarter to nearly overcome a 20-point third quarter deficit.
Canfield got big games from Kate Popovec, Bryanne Halfhill and Jillian Halfhill in their rout of the Rockets.
The trio helped the Cards open up a 30-5 first quarter lead and were never tested by Streetsboro (4-18).
Popovec scored nine of her game-high 27 points in the opening quarter while Brianne Halfhill also popped in nine of her 23 in the period. Popovec grabbed 18 rebounds.
Jillian Halfhill scored 10 in the quarter, including two 3-pointers, and finished with 17 points in the game.
“We’ve been waiting all season long for this night,” Pavlansky said. “We’ve had a couple of bumps in the road but now we are looking forward to next Thursday night.
“We are looking at things one game at a time.”
The Cardinals were impressive in that they did very little wrong against Streetsboro and played like a seasoned basketball team.
Canfield shot the ball over 50 percent from the field and dominated on both ends of the court on the boards.
Nine players got in the scoring column and everyone who took the floor for Canfield contributed in some way.
“We’ll take any win there is when it comes tournament time,” Pavlansky said. “Things went pretty well.
“We are definitely a team that wants to run up and down the court and hopefully we are going to force our opponents to do that.”
Senior Kaylene Way led the Rockets with 13 points while Kelsey Cianci pulled down seven rebounds.
The Cardinals got a good look at their opponent next week by watching an equally impressive effort by Kenston against Liberty.
The Leopards (15-7) trailed the Bombers 50-30 entering the fourth quarter before rallying.
Liberty opened the fourth quarter on an 18-4 run to cut the lead to 54-48 with 3:00 left in the game.
Brittany Armour scored 11 points in the fourth quarter and made two free throws with 2:30 left to get Liberty
to within five points, 55-50. Melissa Dykes also had eight points in the fourth quarter comeback.
“We played well in the beginning of the game and at the end,” said Liberty coach John Hritz. “I’m not sure what happened to us in the second and third quarter.”
Liberty opened the game with a 10-0 start and led 12-6 after the first quarter.
Kenston behind the strong play of Stephanie Deuley, Liz Holzheimer and Molly Crosby began to take over the game.
The Bombers used a strong inside game against a small but quick Liberty team to slowly build the 20-point lead.
Liberty got back in the game by pressing the Bombers all over the court.
Armour finished the game with 18 points while Dykes added 14. Chi-Chi Merriweather scored 12 points.
“I’m disappointed in tonight’s outcome,” Hritz said. “But we had a great season. I think we overachieved all year and I’m proud of the girls for that.”