CURWENSVILLE – DuBois Central Catholic (DCC) opened the 2015 calendar year Friday night against Curwensville on the Lady Tide home floor and came away with a 40-30 victory.
The Lady Cardinals, losers of four straight, played a pressing, energetic defense to move its record to 3-5 on the year while Curwensville dropped to 4-2.
From the start, those in attendance could see that the Curwensville offense was out of sync, something not lost on Lady Tide head coach Rusty McCracken, “We were partially out of sync, but give credit to DuBois Central Catholic and their aggressive defense. They played very hard to get the win.”
The Tide didn’t score its first bucket until senior Ciara Strickland scored with 4:20 remaining in the first period.
Curwensville did have a brief 5-4 lead on another Strickland basket with 1:04 left in the opening frame.
The Lady Tide would only lead one more time as senior guard Heather Thorp gave Curwensville a 9-8 margin in the second period on two free throws at the 4:24 point before the halftime break.
McCracken continued about his team’s off night on the offensive end of the floor, saying, “Sometimes you just have these kinds of shooting nights. We knew that they (DCC) weren’t a high scoring team and we thought we could overcome them because of that.”
Leading by six at the half, 17-11, the Lady Cardinals withstood a Lady Tide comeback in the third eight minutes.
DCC stretched the lead to eight 23-15 before Curwensville answered with seven straight points to pull to within one, 23-22, with 30 seconds left in the third period.
A 9-0 DuBois Central Catholic run that went from the end of the third period into the fourth, gave the Cardinals a 10-point lead at 32-22.
The Lady Tide would pull to within six a couple of times before the final buzzer, but could get no closer as the offense just wasn’t there on this particular night.
Leading the way for the Lady Tide was Strickland with 13 hard earned points. Strickland came in averaging over 27 points per game.
Tide sophomore Hannah Dixon was seven of eight from the free throw line and chipped in with nine points.
DCC was paced by Jordy Frank with 11 tallies coming off of the bench for coach Mike Nesbit.
The junior varsity game was also won by the Lady Cardinals, as they defeated the Lady Tide by a score of 41-18 in the evening’s first game.
Curwensville, 4-2, will next play the Lady Warriors of West Branch in Moshannon Valley League play on Monday night on the Lady Tide home court. JV action starts at 6 pm, with the varsity to immediately follow.
Tune in to the Curwensville-West Branch contest on WOKW-FM, 102.9, with the pre-game show starting at 7:15 pm.
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC – 40
Angel Cardamone 0 2-2 2, Riley Assalone 3 0-0 6, Caitlyn Mandaley 3 0-3 6, Libby Maurer 3 0-0 6, Macey Hanes 1 2-2 4, Natalie Curtis 1 1-2 3, Jordy Frank 4 3-3 11, Kasey Baronick 0 0-0 0, Caitlin Drahushak 0 2-2 2, TOTALS – 15 10-14 40
CURWENSVILLE – 30
Heather Thorp 0 2-3 2, Hannah Dixon 1 7-8 9, Christine Limbert 3 0-0 6, Ciara Strickland 6 1-5 13, Shauna Guy 0 0-0 0, Camryn Richards 0 0-0 0, Kayli Sedgwick 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 10 10-16 30
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC 8 9 8 15 40
CURWENSVILLE 5 6 11 8 30
THREE-POINTERS: NONE
OFFICIALS: Bill Zupich, Rich Gormont
Lady Tide Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/08 | MO VALLEY | 61 – 45 | 1 – 0 |
| 12/09 | BROCKWAY | 67 – 46 | 2 – 0 |
| 12/12 | @ Ridgway | 42 – 36 | 3 – 0 |
| 12/19 | @ Kane | 46 – 51 | 3 – 1 |
| 12/29 | @ Clearfield | 66 – 40 | 4 – 1 |
| 01/02 | DUBOIS CENTRAL | 30 – 40 | 4 – 2 |
| 01/05 | WEST BRANCH | ||
| 01/06 | @ Johnsonburg | ||
| 01/09 | @ Harmony | ||
| 01/13 | @ Elk County Catholic | ||
| 01/15 | @ Mo Valley | ||
| 01/20 | RIDGWAY | ||
| 01/23 | @ Brockway | ||
| 01/26 | @ DuBois Central | ||
| 01/28 | GLENDALE | ||
| 01/30 | JOHNSONBURG | ||
| 02/03 | @ Sheffield | ||
| 02/04 | @ Glendale | ||
| 02/06 | KANE | ||
| 02/09 | HARMONY | ||
| 02/11 | @ West Branch | ||
| 02/13 | CLEARFIELD |