CURWENSVILLE – The Curwensville Area High School girls basketball team kept it interesting against once-beaten Elk County Catholic for most of the first quarter Wednesday night.
Then, the perennial Allegheny Mountain League contenders, ranked No. 3 in Class A and No. 5 overall in this week’s Bradford Era/D9Sports.com District 9 ratings, put the clamps on the Lady Tide with their tough, in-your-face man defense.
When the final buzzer sounded in Patton Hall, the Lady Crusaders had pulled away to a very convincing 57-25 win, their 11th.
Curwensville (2-8) was the seventh opponent ECC has limited to less than 30 points.
“They’re a menacing defense,” Lady Tide coach Rusty McCracken said. “They replace each other real well, they see the ball and they get in the way.
“They’re not a high scoring team, either, so they really depend on their defense.”
So did the Lady Tide at the outset with a new-look 1-2-2 zone.
“The girls really came out ready to play,” McCracken said. “We tried something different. We went to a zone that we haven‘t been playing much up to this point, and the girls responded. We got some early steals, made some good passes, and we hung right with them.”
After scoring the game’s first two points at the foul line, Tierra Shope found Ciara Strickland open to give the Lady Tide the second of three early two-point leads in the AML crossover game.
Lexie Meholic’s steal provided the Lady Crusaders their first edge at 6-4, but Savannah Strickland tossed in a one-hander and then beat the ECC press with a long, lead pass that Katrina Seaburn took to the hoop to make it 8-6 with just over five minutes gone.
However, ECC went on a 9-2 run in the final 2:51 of the period, going in front to stay on open looks by Meholic and Kristy Hanes from the left side that bracketed a free throw by Julia Sweeney.
Savannah Strickland nailed a 19-footer from the left wing, but Hanes hit from outside and Petrosky worked the baseline to put the Lady Crusaders up 15-10.
Ciara Strickland matched Abby Struble’s three-pointer to start the second period before ECC took control .
The Lady Crusaders amped up the defense and began to find holes in the Lady Tide zone for an 11-2 run keyed by Petrosky’s short set shot, a drive and a putback.
“We just stopped putting the ball in the basket,” McCracken said. “I think we got a little anxious. We weren’t as patient with the ball. And we weren’t concise.
“They popped out with a little more pressure on defense. Give them credit. They kind of rattled us in the second quarter as well.
“They did a good job of finding the weaknesses of the zone, too. They overloaded and got us out of position sometimes. We‘re still working on it. Hopefully, it will come along.”
It didn’t get any better for the Lady Tide after intermission.
Following Ciara Strickland’s long stepback one-hander to begin the third quarter, Curwensville couldn’t get off the 18 on its side of the scoreboard for more than 10 minutes.
“We have a tendency to do that once in a while, where we can’t make any shots, for whatever reason. Some of it, we hurry ourselves. Some of it’s good defense.”
When Seaburn finally ended the drought on a putback with 5:23 remaining, the Lady Tide was staring at a 45-20 deficit.
Ciara Strickland collected nine points and Savannah Strickland added eight for Curwensville, which was outscored 26-9 in the second half.
The Lady Crusaders, who shot 46.6 percent, posted their second-highest total of the season with contributions from 10 players. Leading the way were Hanes and Petrosky with 13 and 10 points, respectively.
The Lady Tide was 9-for-36 from the field and got outrebounded 25-14, unable to pull in one of its own misses until the fourth quarter.
Curwensville will be back in action Friday in a Moshannon Valley League game against Harmony at Westover. The Lady Tide beat the Lady Owls 61-22 on Jan. 9.
The Curwensville jayvees also found it difficult putting up points and came out on the short end of a 32-17 prelim. Tiara Bumbarger scored eight for the Lady Tide.
ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC — 57
Taylor DaCanal 2 0-0 4, Maggie Sorg 1 0-0 2, Abbi Petrosky 5 0-2 10, Lexie Meholic 3 0-0 6, Kristy Hanes 6 1-2 13, Julia Sweeney 2 1-2 5, Macy Neureiter 4 0-0 8, Morgan Onink 2 0-0 4, Kayla Weis 0 0-0 0, Stephanie Zimmerman 1 0-0 2, Jena Struble 1 0-0 3. TOTALS: 27 2-6 57.
CURWENSVILLE — 25
Savannah Strickland 3 2-5 8, Tierra Shope 0 2-2 2, Becca Johnson 0 0-0 0, Ciara Strickland 3 2-4 9, Katrina Seaburn 2 0-3 4, Kealy Wassil 0 0-0 0, Tiffany Carter 1 0-0 2, Megan McGarry 0 0-0 0, Tiara Bumbarger 0 0-0 0, Abby Dugo 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 9 5-14 25.
Three-Point Field Goals – Elk County Catholic 1 (Struble); Curwensville 1 (C. Strickland).
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Elk County Catholic 15 16 8 18 – 57
Curwensville 10 6 2 7 – 25
Officials – Rich Gormont and Bill Zupich.
