Western Reserve girls make history with victory

March 2, 2014 at 12:07a.m.

MINERAL RIDGE

For round three of this season’s Columbiana-Western Reserve girls basketball rivalry, Blue Devils head coach Steve Miller gambled, deciding to pressure the Clippers early.

The strategy paid off as Western Reserve jumped out to a double-digit lead by halftime on the way to Saturday’s 48-39 victory in the Division IV district final at Mineral Ridge High School.

By defeating their co-champions of the Inter Tri-County League Tier Two, the Blue Devils (20-6) earned their program’s first regional trip. Western Reserve will play Zanesville Bishop Rosecrans at 8 p.m. on Thursday at Massillon Perry High School.

“It’s huge,” Tory White said of the regional berth. “A lot of people doubted us in the regular season — we were always the underdogs. So it’s really nice to come out and prove everybody wrong.”

Aleah Hughes, who led the Blue Devils with 15 points and 13 rebounds, agreed about the impact.

“It’s the first time we’re going to regionals,” Hughes said. “We wanted to be that team.”

After splitting their first two games and sharing the league crown, the Blue Devils took charge immediately, racing out to an 11-4 lead in the first quarter.

By halftime, the advantage was 26-14. The key was containing Columbiana senior point guard Baylie Mook.

“We surprised them when we jumped into a press — you don’t press Columbiana because they have Baylie Mook,” Miller said of the gameplan. “No one was really able to pressure her.

“We put two guards on her {Lauren Falasca, Paige Ewing] and said, ‘Let’s see what happens,’” Miller said. “We did not want her dribbling through, we did not want her attacking.”

The first experiment worked.

“We just caught them and [produced] a quick turnover, Miller said. “That was early in the game, we were only up 4-2, but sometimes you need a quick start.

“So we threw it at them here and there. ... It kept them off-balance.”

So did Blue Devils post player Hughes, who staved off foul trouble to dominate underneath.

“We’re fortunate to have her,” Miller said. “The girls understand that she is [our] go-to player. It’s happened all season long. It seemed like when we needed a bucket, she was there.”

White and Rachel Maslach each scored 11 points while Ewing scored nine.

Columbiana head coach Ron Moschella said the Blue Devils were “outstanding getting back as quick as they could.

“[And] they made foul shots,” said Moschella, of the Blue Devils’ 17-of-24 shooting from the free-throw line.

After making 22 of 32 free throws in Wednesday’s win over Lisbon, the Clippers (23-3) struggled, making just 3 of 15 attempts.

“They played harder than us in the first half,” Moschella said. “I thought we played hard the second half. We got away from some of the things we wanted to do.

“We wanted to penetrate, we wanted to fast break. We were back on our heels at the beginning.”

Thanks to the spark ignited by the Clippers’ Mollie Donnelly, the fourth quarter was closer than the final score indicates.

Donnelly’s 13 points in the final quarter included three 3-pointers. The second one came with 2:53 remaining and sliced the Blue Devils’ lead to 41-34.

But the Blue Devils scored the next four points and Mook was called for a charge and fouled out. She finished with 10 points and Emily Witmer had 11.

“She’s such a good player,” said Miller of Mook. “She’s smart, she’s aggressive, she takes the ball to the hole.

“The first two times we played, she did not [score in] double figures. I told my girls there is no way if we could contain her that we could lose.”