CURWENSVILLE — Ciara Strickland matched her season average with 24 points, Hannah Dixon tossed in 15 more and Christine Limbert grabbed 15 rebounds to propel the Curwensville Area High School basketball team to a 50-33 win over Glendale in Patton Hall Wednesday night.
The Lady Tide moved closer to two of their goals with their 10th victory in 15 games.
One was to repeat as Moshannon Valley League champions, and their 5-0 record has them a game and a half up on West Branch.
“It’s good to have beaten everybody once, but we still have some tough games to go,” Curwensville coach Rusty McCracken cautioned.
Averting back-to-back losses kept another objective in the Lady Tide’s sights as they were coming off a long night against DuBois Central Catholic.
“One of our goals was to not lose two in a row, and we haven’t fallen into that,” McCracken noted. “It’s nice to bounce back with a win after playing poorly at DCC. They were just on fire, and that was frustrating for us.”
The Lady Tide showed that they had put that 60-33 defeat behind them.
Strickland came out red-hot against a Lady Viking defense which was trying to keep her in check with a box-and-one.
The school’s all-time leading pointmaker sizzled the nets with six field goals in seven shots in the first period to fuel a 22-point outburst that had the Lady Tide ahead by 11 at the first rest stop.
Included in her barrage were a quartet of three-pointers in five attempts from behind the arc.
“She just saw the basket really well,” McCracken said. “And give credit to some of her teammates that were able to find her with some of those passes and set her up for good shots.
“She does a good job of that stepback three-pointer, too. She works on that a lot during the off-season and has developed that really well.
“She just comes out and does her job night after night after night.”
The senior guard added three-pointers in the second and third periods for a career-high six, swishing a long one just two minutes into the second half that turned out to be her final points while giving Curwensville a 40-21 cushion.
After finishing the first half 14-for-27 from the field to lead 35-19, the Lady Tide sputtered on offense in the last 16 minutes, making only seven of 32 shots.
“Some of it was missed layups, and we had some peeps that we just didn’t finish,” McCracken said. “We just weren’t focused on what’s going on, but the big thing is we didn’t really lose any point spread. We finished about where we were at halftime.”
The closest Glendale (4-11, 1-3 MVL) got was 15 points early in the fourth period.
Dixon scored six of the Lady Tide’s last 10 points for her second-best output of the season.
“We need Hannah to be there every night, and it’s good to see her bounce back off of her ankle injury,” McCracken said. “And, again, Christine just dominated on the boards. Shauna (Guy) played a good game, too. She had some nice passes, some nice cutbacks.”
Heather Thorp, the other starter, chipped in with nine assists.
“She has over 90 assists, which is her favorite thing to do,” McCracken said. “She’s a self-proclaimed ’I don’t shoot!’ kind of person. She would rather set people up and get them the basket.”
One downer for the Lady Tide came with 1:33 left when Strickland had to be helped off the court after turning an ankle, but McCracken later said the injury didn’t appear to be very serious.
He’ll be keeping his fingers crossed she will be ready to go Friday when the Lady Tide hosts Johnsonburg in an Allegheny Mountain League South Division game.
Pacing the young Lady Vikings was Cierra O’Shell with 10 points, including two of their three trifectas. She‘s one of three sophomore starters.
Glendale’s junior varsity won the prelim, 42-16.
Moshannon Valley League — Curwensville 5-0, West Branch 3-2, Moshannon Valley 3-3, Glendale 1-3, Harmony 0-4.
GLENDALE — 33
Amber Matier 3 0-1 6, Anna Fowler 1 1-4 4, Lauryn Clarkson 1 0-0 2, Cierra O’Shell 4 0-0 10, Shannon Ricketts 2 0-0 4, Alisha Plummer 1 0-0 2, Makenzie Lukehart 2 1-2 5, Kiana Johnston 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 14 2-7 33.
CURWENSVILLE — 50
Heather Thorp 1 1-2 3, Hannah Dixon 7 1-1 15, Christine Limbert 2 0-4 4, Ciara Strickland 9 0-0 24, Kayli Sedgwick 0 0-0 0, Camryn Richards 0 0-0 0, Kristina McCracken 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 21 2-7 50.
Three-Point Field Goals – Glendale 3 (Fowler 1, O’Shell 2); Curwensville 6 (Strickland 6).
Score by Quarters
Glendale 11 8 6 8 – 33
Curwensville 22 13 9 6 – 50
Officials – Jerry Carnicella and Bill Overly.
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 | 50 – 30 | 7 – 3 |
| 01/20 | RIDGWAY | 48 – 49 | 7 – 4 |
| 01/22 | HARMONY | 47 – 38 | 8 – 4 |
| 01/23 | @ Brockway | 47 – 40 | 9 – 4 |
| 01/26 | @ DuBois Central | ppd. | 9 – 4 |
| 01/27 | @ DuBois Central | 33 – 60 | 9 – 5 |
| 01/28 | GLENDALE | 50 – 33 | 10 – 5 |
| 01/30 | JOHNSONBURG | ||
| 02/03 | @ Sheffield | ||
| 02/04 | @ Glendale | ||
| 02/06 | KANE | ||
| 02/09 | @ Harmony | ||
| 02/11 | @ West Branch | ||
| 02/13 | CLEARFIELD |