Streaking Grove City bounces Westminster

The Wolverines avenged an earlier loss to the Titans.

By BILL ALBRIGHT

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. — In the first meeting this season between Grove City and Westminster, the Titans won by five points.

Wednesday night at Buzz Ridl Gymnasium, the shoe was on the other foot as the Wolverines led by as many as 12 points before holding off the Titans down the stretch for a 61-51 win.

Grove City (8-10, 3-5 Presidents’ Athletic Conference) extended its winning streak to five games, while the loss for the Titans (11-7, 4-4) was their fourth straight.

“One of the big keys that we put on the board to remind them [the players] was that we needed to finish,” said GCC coach Sarah Harris. “That is one thing we didn’t do at our place. We had the lead for pretty much the whole game the first time and we let them come back on us at the end.”

Westminster coach Rosanne Scott agreed her team was in the opposite role in this game.

“We gave ourselves an opportunity [to win the game],” said Scott. “We had the ball at the end, and a couple of the shots could have fallen our way, but they didn’t.”

Seven minutes into the game, the Titans held a 13-7 and appeared ready to pull away to big lead.

But Grove City picked up the intensity on the defensive end of the floor and ripped off 18 unanswered points to take a 25-12 lead with five minutes left in the period.

Westminster managed to cut the deficit back to seven points with a 5-0 run before Brittany Anderson hit a short jumper and Shannon Overdorf followed with a 3-pointer to give Grove City a 30-20 lead at halftime.

One of the big factors for the Wolverines was in field goal shooting, where GCC hit on 52 percent of their first-half shots while Westminster was just 29 percent.

“We are not a strong offensive team and we don’t mind that playing tough defense is our identity,” said Harris. “Shots will fall and shots will be missed, but you can always show up with your defense. That is a lot of what we want and tonight we got it.”

Scott agreed with Harris about the Wolverines’ ability to play defense.

“They [GCC] are a very good defensive team,” Scott said. “Not only do they work hard, but they are a scrappy team and they box out very well. When they went on that 18-0 run, this is the first time that we have been down by 10 and haven’t been able to come back. Although it didn’t chalk up as a win for us tonight, it did help us in other ways.”

The Titans slowly crept back into the game until they trailed by just three points on seven occasions, the last one with 1:20 remaining. But GCC scored the final seven points of the game.

“We managed to make it a little exciting at the end, but the important thing is that we did what we needed to get the win,” said Harris

For the Titans, Emilee Ackerman had 26 points and 11 rebounds, while Grove City was led by Christine Slater with 19 points. Amy Dolsak (McDonald) added 11 points for Westminster.