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Canfield holds off Spartans’ late rally
By STEVE WILAJ
AKRON
Boardman turned up the pressure, cutting Monday’s Division I girls basketball district semifinal against Canfield to a one-possession game with just three minutes to go.
This came after the Cardinals led by 16 points at halftime.
“They pressured us and it kind of got us a little stiff,” Canfield senior guard Ashley Kaleel said. “But once we got out of that and we got some stops and scores, that’s all we needed.”
The Cardinals fought off Boardman’s furious comeback attempt, edging the Spartans, 53-45, at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary’s High School to advance to a district final on Thursday at 7 p.m. against Stow-Munroe Falls.
“We knew the run was coming,” Canfield coach Matt Reel said. “I don’t think we did a real good job of handling it, but [Boardman] kept coming after us and showed no quit.
“But I’m just really proud of our girls for hanging on.”
Freshman Serena Sammarone scored a team-high 12 points for Canfield (15-9), while Kaleel and Alexandra Stanic each added 11 points.
Boardman (10-14) was paced Lauren Gabriele’s 18 points and Krista Johnson’s 14 points, but the Spartans fell behind 10-0 to start the game and trailed 32-16 at the half.
Then the comeback started.
Boardman trimmed Canfield’s lead to 13 points after three quarters. The Spartans then used a 14-4 run to start the fourth to cut its deficit to three points with three minutes to go.
A layup by Gabriel made it 46-43 at the 2:11 mark, but Sammarone answered with a putback layup to boost it back to a two-possession game.
Then, a Johnson layup with 56 seconds left cut Canfield’s lead to 48-45, but a Marissa Donchess free throw and two Jill Baker free throws iced the game for the Cardinals.
“In that locker room, it was hard to address because when you exert as much energy as we did and have as much fight as we had ... it was a one possession game,” Boardman coach Jeff Hammerton said. “So it’s tough to come up with words when you fight that hard in the second half and come up a little short.”
Canfield forced Boardman into 10 first-half turnovers.
The Cardinals jumped out to a 15-1 lead, took a 19-5 advantage after the first and led 25-7 after three consecutive steals and layups by Sammarone.
“We started off well and we shot the ball well,” Reel said. “I thought we got tentative against their pressure. They were making shots and making plays, but we finally got a couple layups. That kind of got us back and we finally got some defensive stops.”
For as hard as Boardman fought back, the Spartans finished just 2 of 19 from 3-point range.
“We just weren’t making shots tonight,” Hammerton said. “But we picked up the defensive pressure. The first half, I thought that maybe we were a little tentative and weren’t playing pressure defense like I would like. Second half I think we pressured them better.”
The Cardinals, led by three Kaleel 3-pointers’s, finished 5 of 14 from behind the arc and 8 of 13 at the foul line.
“In the end, it did get a little bit shaky, but we fought through it,” Kaleel said. “We’re all really excited.”