Cornerstone Christian dominates J-M girls

March 4, 2016 at 12:10a.m.

Cornerstone

Christian

dominates

J-M girls

By STEVE WILAJ

MASSILLON

Jackson-Milton scored 17 points in the fourth quarter of Thursday’s Division IV regional semifinal at Perry High School. Meanwhile, the Bluejays held Cornerstone Christian scoreless for the entire period.

Good outcome for Jackson-Milton, right? Think again.

Despite a dominant fourth-quarter flurry, the Bluejays still fell, 46-34, in the first regional contest in the program’s history. Kaitlyn Totani led Jackson-Milton (23-3) with 16 points, but Cornerstone Christian (22-4) used a 33-9 advantage over the second and third quarters to take command of the contest.

“I told the kids they have nothing to be ashamed about,” Bluejays coach Pat Keney said. “They worked hard.

“[Cornerstone Christian] was aggressive — we haven’t seen that type of aggressiveness all year. So I’m not taking nothing away from them — they’re a good team with some great athletes. We came out in the second half and played hard and tried to fight our way back in the game.”

After a 13-8 first quarter in favor of the Patriots, Cornerstone Christian won the second quarter, 11-2. It then outscored Jackson-Milton 22-7 in the third quarter — holding the Bluejays without a field goal for a stretch of nine minutes and 50 seconds.

In all, Jackson-Milton committed 19 turnovers.

“They were aggressive — we really haven’t seen anything like that all year,” said Totani, a junior. “So it was kind of a shock, but we tried to hang in there the best we could.

“We adjusted some things [in the fourth quarter] and started doing more things on offense that we could have done the whole game. We just wanted to push it because we were down by a lot and we weren’t gonna give up.”

Trailing 46-17 entering the final frame, Jackson-Milton cut the lead of the Patriots — who subbed out their starters for the majority of the quarter — to 12 points with about 1:30 remaining. But that’s as close as the Bluejays came.

Other than Kaitlyn Totani, no other Jackson-Milton player scored in double figures. Michaelina Terranova added six points, while Ashley Totani and Emily Williams each scored four points.

“It was about our ball pressure,” Cornerstone Christian coach Lisa Stopp said. “The twins and [Terranova], they’re very athletic. Our goal was to contain them. We like to pressure, but they’re really good at penetrating, getting into the paint and making their teammates better.”

The Patriots were led by Ashley West’s 19 points, while Grace Marino added 12 points.

“They had a couple girls that made some great moves and took the ball to the hoop,” Keney said. “The ball wasn’t going our way.”

The Bluejays won a district title for the first time in school history this season when they defeated McDonald, 36-20. They’ll lose just one player to graduation —senior forward Olivia Wolfe.

“We made history and had a great season,” Kaitlyn Totani said. “I couldn’t have a better team — it’s been great this year. Next year I think we’re just gonna come back stronger since we have pretty much everyone back. We’re gonna push all year.”