HYDE – It was a tale of two halves for the Clearfield girls basketball team Wednesday night against the visiting Lady Elkers of Ridgway.
Coming into the contest the Lady Elkers were 2-7 on the year and the Lady Bisons were at 3-1. One would think Clearfield would have it’s way with their guests from up north.
It was either Clearfield not into the first half or just that the Ridgway squad played their best sixteen minutes of the year. Whatever it was the Lady Bisons found themselves only up by three at the break, 20-17. In fact Clearfield had a 20-10 margin before the Elkers went on a 7-0 run to end the second quarter.
Only a few people know what Clearfield head coach Joey Castagnolo had to say at the half, but whatever it was it surely worked wonders in the following sixteen minutes.
“After playing a very flat first half I was really happy and pleased with the way we came out in the third quarter to take control of the game”, Castagnolo said afterwards.
Clearfield did just that, outscoring Ridgway 25 to 8 to open up a twenty point lead after three frames were in the books. The Elkers had cut the deficit at one point to 26-23 but the Lady Bisons went on a 19-2 run to close out the third up 45-25.
Catsagnolo talked about what worked well in the third quarter, saying, “We played very aggressive defense and just pounded the ball inside on offense to really get us going.”
The final eight minutes would just determine the final score at 55-37 and Clearfield improving to 4-1 with Ridgway dropping to 2-8.
The Lady Bisons had three girls in double figures which was not lost on Castagnolo, “ I was extremely pleased to see that we had three girls hit for double digits which shows our overall offensive balance that every coach looks for.”
Gwenn Porter led the Lady Bison charge with 14 followed by 12 from Madison Sopic and 10 from Amber Byerly.
Ridgway was fueled by 14 from junior Bryton Dybowksi making her first start of the 2009-10 campaign. Dybowski started in place of Lady Elker leading scorer Bekka Leitzel who was out of action with illness.
The Lady Bisons travel to Bradford to test the Lady Owls in their first District 9 league game on Friday night.
Check out: http://www.ladybisonsports.org/lbsbballF.html for more Lady Bison coverage.
RIDGWAY – 37
Olivia Horning 3 2-4 8, Nicole Breier 2 2-2 6, Kathryn Shirey 1 0-6 3, Andrea Redmond 1 1-2 3, Bryton Dybowski 6 2-3 14, Shelby Davison 1 0-0 3, Denise Larnder 0 0-0 0, Selena Scarnati 0 0-0 0. TOTALS – 14 7-17 37
CLEARFIELD – 55
Jayme Ryan 2 0-0 5, Gwenn Porter 6 2-7 14, Madison Sopic 5 1-2 12, Elizabeth Peters 2 0-0 4, Amber Byerly 2 6-10 10, Breanna Peters, 2 2-4 6, Angela Moore 0 0-0 0, Lori Zalno 1 0-0 2, Kristen Butler 1 0-0 2, Rachel Thompson 0 0-2 0, Lisa Ambuski 0 0-0 0. TOTALS – 21 11-25 55
SCORE B Y QUARTERS:
RIDGWAY 8 9 8 12 37
CLEARFIELD 11 9 25 10 55
THREE-POINTERS: RIDGWAY – 2 Shirey, Redmond CLEARFIELD – 2 Sopic, Ryan