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Spartan boys, Tigers girls sweep season series
By greg gulas
boardman
The Howland girls and Boardman boys teams look like streaking squads that cannot wait for the upcoming basketball tournament to get under way.
The Boardman girls and Howland boys on the other hand, look like teams still searching for an identity down the home stretch of the regular season.
The Spartans boys used a 17-point, eight-steal effort off the bench from Che Trevena, also getting 12 points from John Ryan and 11 more from Holden Lipke as they coasted to a 66-50, All-American Conference Red Tier victory over the Tigers Saturday at the Boardman Gymnasium.
In the opening game of the doubleheader, Sara Price’s double-double – 26 points and 16 rebounds – helped the Tigers to a 56-23 win over Boardman as they remained atop the Red Tier with their ninth win in 10 league frays.
When the two girl’s teams met back on Dec. 23, Price could manage just 14 points while the Tigers’ defense held the Spartans to a season low offensive output during a 60-34 win.
They swept the season series by duplicating that defensive effort and holding the Spartans (9-9, 4-7) to a new season low offensively while Price needed just 10 minutes and 26 seconds to match her effort the first time around.
Her 16 caroms were also a season high.
“They shut me down the last time and got into my head, so I just kept saying that no matter what just keep shooting the ball and play defense,” Price said. “We won the AAC last year and the goal is to do that again this year. We’ve practiced hard all season so to have a week to practice for this game really helped. We want to keep on winning and be tournament ready by the end of the month.”
Price scored the Tigers’ first eight points of the game as Howland raced to a 9-4 lead heading to the second period.
Eight more points by Price then staked the Tigers (15-4, 9-1) to a 22-14 lead at the intermission.
“Tonight Sara shot and played better than the first time we played Boardman, and so did the entire team,” Tigers coach John Diehl said. “We watched Lauren Pavlansky hit four threes and score 16 points against Canfield the other night, but tonight Mackenzie Maze did a great job on her defensively. We knew what they were going to do and having a week to prepare really helped. In all fairness to Spartans head coach Jeff Hammerton, he just had one day to prepare for us.”
Eight points by Kayla Clark and a stingy Tigers defense held Boardman to just one free throw after intermission helped Howland extend their lead to 42-15, outscoring the hosts 14-8 in the final session so secure their 33 point victory.
“We tried to spread the court and take their big players out of the paint, trying three point shots with the hope of catching lightning in a bottle,” Hammerton said. “We just couldn’t get it going tonight offensively.”
Lauren Gabriele and Brooke Hoffman each had six points for the Spartans.
In the nightcap, Boardman (13-3, 7-2) trailed Howland 15-13 with one second remaining in the opening frame and when Ryan nailed a missile from beyond the arc as time expired, the Spartans took a 16-15 lead heading to the second quarter.
They never trailed the rest of the way.
“We really push ourselves in practice and we’re jelling right now, but we’re still not where we want to be with the tournament coming up,” Ryan said. “We’re making great strides and played well tonight, but the goal is to be tournament ready by the end of the month.”
Trevena, who also had eight steals, added five points in the second period as Boardman forged a 37-26 halftime margin.
“The key for us right now is that we are playing much better defense,” Trevena added. “We must keep pushing ourselves though in order to get better each time we hit the floor.”
In what seemed like a lethargic third quarter for both teams, at least offensively, Boardman outscored the Tigers (7-10, 2-7) by a 10-9 count for a 47-35 lead with one quarter remaining.
Trevena’s 10 points in the final period sealed the victory as the Spartans remained undefeated in nine home contests.
“The last game we built a late lead, only to have Howland make some shots and push us right to the final buzzer,” Boardman coach Pat Birch said. “We played more of a complete game tonight, pressured their guards and just kept applying pressure the entire game.”
Mike Massucci had 15 points and Connor Tamarkin added 13 for the Tigers.