McDonald, Leetonia set for round three

The teams split their regular season meeting.

By DOUG CHAPIN

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

HUBBARD — Much more will be at stake Saturday afternoon at Hubbard High than the season series between the girls basketball teams from McDonald and Leetonia, though that indeed will be decided. After a split of their two games during the regular season, the two face off at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Division IV district championship game.

The winner advances to the regional tournament next week at Massillon Perry High.

The teams reached Saturday’s final with semifinal victories Thursday night. McDonald (22-1) defeated Lordstown, 53-29, and Leetonia (18-5) posted a 40-30 triumph over Mathews.

McDonald, which won the Inter Tri-County League Tier Two title over Leetonia, has been in the district final at Hubbard for the last three seasons, winning the title in 2006. Leetonia was a first-round loser each of the last three seasons in tournament play.

The Blue Devils got a 22-point, 17-rebound performance from Emily Dolsak Thursday against Lordstown (14-9). McDonald led 14-8 after one quarter and 25-18 at the half before stretching the advantage to 40-27 after three quarters. A 13-2 final quarter put the game away.

“We always want to run and turnovers are going to be a part of our game, but we stress taking care of the ball and we didn’t do that in the first half,” McDonald coach Rob Hilbun said.

“But Lordstown plays good defense, so we were glad to get out of here with the win. We’re just happy to be in the final.”

Lordstown was paced by Kelsey Wickline with 12 points, Brianna Blodgett with eight points and 10 rebounds, and Karly Gibbs with four assists.

“We played a good team tonight, you can’t take anything away from them,” Lordstown coach Pat Keney said. “But I wasn’t really happy about the ratio of fouls called.”

The whistles of the game officials also played a role in the Leetonia-Mathews game as the teams combined to shoot 49 free throws. But Leetonia shot 71 percent (17-for-24) at the foul line, compared to 40 percent (10-for-25) for Mathews (12-11).

“I tell my girls every game it comes down to rebounds and free throws,” Leetonia coach Kelly Paxson said. “We didn’t make as many free throws as we’d like in the first half, but in the second half, when we needed to make them, we knocked them down.”

The Bears started in a man-to-man defense and led 12-9 after the first quarter, then switched to a zone that was very effective the rest of the way.

“We haven’t played a lot of man this season, but we worked on it a lot this week and thought we would do better at it,” Paxson said. “But the calls were too tight, we fouled too much, so we had to go back into zone and it worked well for us.”

It would seem a game with a lot of fouls called would favor Mathews, since the Mustangs have a deeper bench.

“It was definitely scary,” Paxson said. “We had four of our starters with four fouls at the end of the game. It was tough, but I trust my players that when they go out there and I say ‘Don’t foul,’ they don’t foul.”

Mathews’ poor shooting night wasn’t just at the foul line. The Mustangs shot just 21 percent (9-for-42) from the floor for the game.

“We missed our outside shots, we couldn’t get the ball inside and, when we did, we missed layup after layup,” coach John Cicero said. “When you get behind 10 to a team like that it’s hard to come back. We gave everything we had trying to come back but just couldn’t pull it off.”

Freshman post Clarissa Perkins had 15 points and eight rebounds for Leetonia, Lynsie Davis added 12 rebounds and Deidre Curry 10 points.

Mathews was paced by Carly Roscoe with nine points and Allie Stein with six points and six rebounds.

Leetonia led 25-15 at halftime and held its largest lead, 30-17, with 3:37 left in the third quarter. Mathews crawled back to within 33-29 with 4:46 left in the game, but that was the closest the Mustangs could come.