ST. MARYS – The Curwensville Area High School girls basketball team hit the road Tuesday night with a journey to St. Marys to play always tough Elk County Catholic.
The Lady Crusaders remained unbeaten at 12-0 with a 52-25 victory over the Lady Tide who now stand at 6-3 on the year.
Elk County Catholic is 5-0 in the Allegheny Mountain League South Division while Curwensville is 2-2.
The game featured Curwensville senior Ciara Strickland becoming the all-time leading scorer in Lady Tide history, passing Kelly Penvose Hubler.
Strickland hit a three pointer with 3:38 left in the second period to move into first place with 1212 points. She now trails all-time Curwensville leader Rod Kirby by 59.
Lady Tide head coach Rusty McCracken spoke about the accomplishment reached by Strickland, saying, “I couldn’t be more proud of Ciara (Strickland). There isn’t anyone that works harder than she does. This is a well deserved accomplishment.”
The game’s more competitive half was the first, as Curwensville hung tough with the Lady Crusaders trailing 13-8 after one quarter and 27-20 at the half.
Christine Limbert and Shauna Guy scored the last two buckets of the first half to pull Curwensville to within seven before the break.
One down note for the Tide was sophomore Hannah Dixon twisting her right ankle halfway through the first period and was not able to return to the game afterwards.
Although the Lady Tide didn’t have a great first half offensively, the second half was worse – a whole bunch worse as a matter of fact.
Curwensville would only muster a total of five second half points, three in the third period and just two in the fourth.
Elk County Catholic scored 25 points in the final 16 minutes to win another game by a wide margin.
Strickland paced the Lady Tide with 15 points while Kirstie Wehler with 12 points and Reilly Herzing chipping in with 11 led the Crusaders.
McCracken spoke afterwards about the game, saying, “Our offense just totally disappeared in the second half. It’s kind of tough to win when you only put up five points in any half. We simply just didn’t execute well and their press bothered us more than any other team so far.”
The junior varsity game began the evening’s activities which Elk County Catholic won by a 46-11 score over Curwensville.
Curwensville returns to the hardwood on Thursday with a road trip to play Moshannon Valley. JV action tips off at 6 pm, with the varsity to immediately follow.
In the first game of the season, the Lady Tide defeated the Damsels 61-45 at Curwensville.
CURWENSVILLE – 25
Heather Thorp 0 1-2 1, Hannah Dixon 0 0-0 0, Christine Limbert 1 1-2 3, Ciara Strickland 6 1-2 15, Shauna Guy 3 0-0 6, Kayli Sedgwick 0 0-0 0, Nichole Warmuth 0 0-0 0, Camryn Richards 0 0-0 0, Kristina McCracken 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 10 3-6 25
ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC – 52
Julia Sweeney 4 0-0 8, Erin Petrosky 3 1-4 7, Macy Neureiter 4 0-0 8, MacKenzie Gahr 1 0-0 2, Kirstie Wehler 5 2-2 12, Reilly Herzing 5 1-2 11, Maddy Schneider 1 0-0 2, Cassidy Cunningham 0 0-0 0, Samantha Zimmerman 0 0-0 0, Nicole Schneider 0 2-4 2, TOTALS – 23 6-12 52
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
CURWENSVILLE 8 12 3 2 25
ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC 13 14 18 7 52
THREE-POINTERS: Strickland 2
OFFICIALS: Mike Campbell, Karen Davis, Dave Furman
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 | 58 – 37 | 5 – 2 |
| 01/06 | @ Johnsonburg | 60 – 47 | 6 – 2 |
| 01/08 | HARMONY | ppd. | 6 – 2 |
| 01/13 | @ Elk County Catholic | 25 – 52 | 6 – 3 |
| 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 |