CURWENSVILLE – The Ridgway girls basketball squad lost their first three games of the season to some tough opponents. Those losses were at the hands of Elk County Catholic, DuBois Central Catholic and St. Marys. However, in reality, those losses actually helped the Lady Elkers overcome Curwensville Friday night at Patton Hall, 54-32.
With a balanced scoring attack from their starters, and a very aggressive defensive effort, Ridgway pulled away from their hosts in the second and third frames after leading 15-10 through the first eight minutes.
Of course the ten first quarter fouls whistled on the Lady Tide had the Lady Elkers making five of nine first quarter free throws which fueled the 13-4 second quarter bulge over the Tide.
Curwensville head coach Rusty McCracken of Curwensville talked about the early foul trouble, “We just took ourselves completely out of the game with the foul trouble we had.\” Then he added, “The two middle quarters caused us to fall behind which made a big difference in the outcome of tonight’s game.”
Bekka Leitzel, senior Ridgway point guard, had ten at the half and finished with 16 to pace the Lady Elkers. Half of Leitzel’s points came in the first eight minutes.
The northern visitors didn’t let up in the third stanza either as they once again outscored Curwensville 14-6 and ended up coasting to the 54-32 victory.
Olivia Horning chipped in with 14 and sophomore Nicole Breier added nine to help out the Ridgway offense.
Tess Bloom once again paved the way for Curwensville, hitting for a season high 16. Bloom ended up going to the free throw line 14 times, making eight.
Savannah Strickland, a sophomore had eight points, while senior Shayla Buzard picked up six for Curwensville.
The loss leaves Curwensville at 0-3 on the year, and as mentioned, the Lady Elkers picked up their first win to move to 1-3 on the 2009-10 campaign.
McCracken knows more hard work is needed, “We just need to develop some confidence in our outside shooting so we will just continue to work hard and hopefully improve game to game.”
Curwensville picked up a win in the junior varsity contest, winning 35-24.
The Lady Tide go back on the road next Wednesday when they visit the Lady Vikings of Glendale. JV action starts at 6 pm with the varsity to immediately follow. Listen to Lady Tide basketball on WOKW-FM, 102.9, starting at 7:15 pm.
RIDGWAY – 54 Olivia Horning 6 2-2 14, Nicole Breier 3 3-6 9, Kathryn Shirey 2 2-2 7, Bekka Leitzel 6 4-5 16, Andrea Redmond 3 0-0 6, Bryton Dybowski 0 1-2 1, Shelby Davison 0 1-2 1, Denise Larnder 0 0-0 0, Selena Scarnati 0 0-0 0, TOTALS 20 13-19 54.
CURWENSVILLE – 32 Savannah Strickland 4 0-0 8, Taylor Bumbarger 0 0-1 0, Shayla Buzard 3 0-0 6, Tess Bloom 4 8-14 16, Katie Wriglesworth 0 0-2 0, Lindsay Barrett 0 0-0 0, Courtney Bachelier 0 0-0 0, Paige McCracken 0 0-0 0, Hannah Bressler 0 0-0 0, Rebecca Johnson 1 0-0 2, Katrina Seaburn 0 0-0 0, TOTALS 12 8-17 32.
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
RIDGWAY 15 13 14 12 54
CURWENSVILLE 10 4 6 12 32
THREE-POINTERS – Shirey