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Dalton gang shoots down Western Reserve girls
Bulldogs’ early 3-point barrage eliminates Blue Devils
By BOB ETTINGER
MASSILLON
Western Reserve girls basketball coach Steve Miller had the Blue Devils prepared for Dalton to shoot the ball well.
What nobody expected was the Bulldogs to make half of their first-half attempts in a 53-32 victory in a Division IV regional semifinal at Massillon Perry High School on Thursday night.
“It’s tough,” Western Reserve post Dani Vuletich said. “We knew coming into the game they would be a really good shooting team. If we left them open, we knew they’d knock down shots. It really hurt us [in the first half]. We weren’t really playing our game and our shots weren’t falling.”
The Bulldogs (21-5) were 12 of 24 (8 of 13 in the second quarter) from the field and 6 of 13 from beyond the arc in the first half in building a 33-19 lead at the break.
“When a team makes six or eight 3-pointers in the first half, you know you’re in trouble,” Miller said.
Dalton will play the Willoughby Cornerstone Christian-New Washington Buckeye Central winner in the regional final at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Bulldogs will play for the regional championship for the second year in a row.
“I told the girls this is what we wanted,” Dalton coach Katie Miller said. “We wanted to have this opportunity again. Last year, it slipped out of our grip. Both teams are good, we have to be prepared to execute on Saturday.”
While Dalton was able to hit most anything it wanted, the Blue Devils (22-4) struggled a bit in that regard. They were 6 of 18 (33 percent) from the field over the first 16 minutes and just 1 of 5 from behind the 3-point line.
“We definitely could’ve shot a little better,” Steve Miller said. “We had some close-range shots, too, but they were still under Dani, bumping her, being physical. We knew it would be a physical game. It’s the regional. The way [Dalton] shot the ball from the perimeter, we knew they were capable of doing that. We were worried about their curl cuts and penetration. If we played them again, I don’t know that we’d defend them differently. You’ve got to roll the dice and you’ve only got one shot at this level to get it right. They didn’t have many weaknesses.”
Western Reserve cut its deficit to eight, 34-26, following a bucket from Vuletich and a 3-pointer from Olivia Pater less than three minutes into the second half, but couldn’t trim it any further.
“We made that run in the third,” Steve Miller said. “I basically told the girls they couldn’t win the game in a minute or two. We were in a huge hole. We wanted to cut it to under 10 and see where were at midway through the fourth quarter. We had a nice third quarter. I thought we executed on both offense and defense.”
Vuletich led the Blue Devils with 17 points and 10 rebounds and Pater added nine points.
“It was really tough [to score with three people around me],” Vuletich said. “But I could rely on my teammates to look in to me and get me the ball. I’ve seen every kind of defense all season. They’ve face-guarded me, doubled me, triple-teamed me. I’m used to it. I expect them to play me hard and hang on me.”