South Range pressures Western Reserve

By Ryan Jones

BERLIN CENTER—Full court pressure was the name of the game for the South Range girls basketball team.

The Raiders harassed Western Reserve into 41 turnovers en route to a 54-44 victory in non-conference action that paired Tier 1 against Tier 2 in the ITCL.

Even in the face of suffocating pressure, the Blue Devils stayed within striking distance most of the game and tied the contest 41-41 midway through the fourth quarter before being outscored 13-3 down the stretch.

South Range coach Wayne Johnson said he feels his team can pressure opponents for all 32 minutes each game.

“The girls are buying into our system,” he said. “We have nine or 10 girls that are all of about equal ability. We know we are going to make mistakes in the process, but we’re going to get our fair share in return. We ran all of our girls at them tonight and we hope that we can wear teams down as the game progresses.”

South Range (2-0) took its largest lead of the contest with about 5:40 left in the fourth period when Sam Smith sank a jumper to give the Raiders a 41-33 advantage.

However, Matti Shahaden’s three-point play and rebound put back spurred Western Reserve’s 8-0 run that tied the score 41-41.

Johnson said his team needs to learn how to put a team away once they establish a lead.

“We’re trying to do that with relentless pressure, but at this point in the season we still need more reps in practice,” he said. “This was a difficult win for us. Western Reserve battled us all game and they were missing some key people.”

Western Reserve coach Josh Scott said he was pleased with his squad’s mental approach to the game.

“This team doesn’t make excuses,” he said. “Even with three of our guards out with injuries there never was a ‘we can’t do this attitude.’ Our girls competed and we had a chance to win the game with less than four minutes left. Ball handling against their pressure was obviously our downfall tonight and no coach is going to be happy with 41 turnovers, but we were confident that we could win.

“Without our injuries we go 10 deep and feel we can play an up tempo game, but tonight we had to have some of our secondary people handle the ball more than usual. We tried to adjust, but South Range took those adjustments away. Jessie Keeler, who normally plays post for us was forced to play guard and had a phenomenal game. ”

South Range featured a balanced scoring attack and put three players in double figures. Ellie Stoffer led the way with 15 points, Gab Naples had 14 points and eight rebounds, and Abby Schuler added 11 points and nine rebounds.

“We are really building upon a team concept,” Johnson said. “We feel we will be hard to defend because on any given night someone else can step up for us. In the first quarter tonight it was Gab Naples, who scored eight points. In our last game she was in foul trouble and didn’t play much.”

Keeler and Hannah Mowery led Western Reserve (1-2) with eight points each. Sammi Burton collected seven rebounds, Victoria Brown had five blocks and Keeler made five steals.

Sam Smith and Caitlin Carter each had five assists for South Range.