Ursuline, S. Range advance in Div. III

By Pete Mollica

The Irish defeated East Palestine and the Raiders eliminated Campbell Memorial.

MINERAL RIDGE — Ursuline High and South Range both cruised to pretty easy victories Monday night in the Division III girls sectional basketball tournament.

Their next games won’t be nearly as easy.

Ursuline (13-7) had little trouble disposing of East Palestine, 55-23, while South Range (13-8) knocked out Campbell Memorial, 47-24, in the opener.

The Irish will now take on No. 3 seeded Garrettsville Garfield on Saturday at 6 p.m., while the Raiders will meet top-seeded United on Thursday at 6 p.m.

Although the Irish had little trouble against the Bulldogs, head coach Sean Durkin was anything but pleased with his team’s performance.

“We didn’t play very well,” Durkin aid. “We played hard but we didn’t play very well. We missed too many easy layup shots.”

Ursuline, which outscored the Bulldogs 20 to 10 in field goals, still missed 37 shots and that was 10 more than East Palestine even attempted (27).

“We’re young, we start two freshmen, but we had been playing very well lately,” Durkin said. “I was disappointed with our performance tonight.”

East Palestine’s coach, Dan McKinstry, said the Bulldogs were just overmatched.

“They’re quicker than we are and they are bigger than we are and they play competition way above what we face in our league” McKinstry said. “Our league is pretty good and we can hold our own there, but nothing like what they play against.

“Still we came back and cut their lead to 17-12 late in the second quarter, but [we] let them score the final eight points in less than a minute and that really turned things around,” he said.

Ursuline also scored the first nine points of the third quarter and 15 of the first 17 and were never threatened the rest of the way.

The Irish only had one player in double figures as Dominique Jenkins led the way with 12 points. But the Irish had 13 players who scored at least two points.

The Bulldogs (4-17) were led by Breanne Hull with 10 points.

In the opening game South Range took a little while to get going, but once the Raiders started there was no stopping them.

After Campbell (11-10) jumped out to an early 6-2 lead, the Raider battled back and regained the lead at 12-9 at the end of the quarter. They scored the first eight points to start the second quarter to take command 20-9 and never looked back.

Ellen Stoffer ignited the Raiders as she scored all eight of her points during that first-half run.

“We’ve shot the ball very well all season long and I thought we could have been a little better in the first two quarters,” said South Range coach Matt Reel. “We adjusted to their quickness early on and we did a good job on the boards especially in the second half.”

The Raiders shot nearly 50 percent from the field, hitting 20-of-41 shots and it was Campbell who couldn’t buy a basket most of the game.

The Red Devils made just 10 of 48 shots on the night, 6-of-21 in the first half and 4-of-27 in the second half.

“We certainly didn’t help ourselves with our shooting tonight,” said coach Mike Szenborn. “We had the advantage of our quickness, but we never really took advantage of it.”

“Give South Range credit they played well and did what they needed to win,” he added.

Alicia Withers and Gab Naples led the way for the Raiders with 10 points each, while Campbell’s Tashira Uceta led all scorers with 15 points.

mollica@vindy.com