CURWENSVILLE – With a strong defensive effort, especially in the second half, the Clearfield girls basketball team easily defeated Curwensville Tuesday night on the Lady Tide home floor, 63-24.
Lady Bison head coach Joey Castagnolo talked afterwards about his defense, “I am really proud of our defensive effort this evening, especially in the second half. We got a lot of turnovers and scores off of our defense. It was a good all around effort by everyone, including our second unit, which I thought played well also.”
Clearfield jumped out to a 20-10 first quarter lead thanks to Margo Castagnolo scoring seven points and Rachel Glenny adding five.
The Lady Tide never could cut into the Clearfield margin to less than eight points in the second quarter and at the half trailed 33-18.
Then the Lady Bison turned up the defense, more than one notch, blanking Curwensville 17-0 in the third quarter, which extended the Clearfield lead to 50-18 after three.
Castagnolo closed, saying, “It was a good win for us tonight here in Curwensville. And I really liked how we found the open girl for good shots and, of course, I thought we did well on the boards at both ends of the floor.”
Emily Ryan paced the Clearfield offense with 16 points with Rachel Glenny adding 11. Margo Castagnolo and Samantha Rockmore added nine each.
All 10 Lady Bison scored in the blowout victory.
First year Lady Tide head coach Eric Duriancik commented after the game, “Turnovers killed us again tonight. That has been the story all year for us. I thought we had decent looks several times but the turnovers stopped us. Plus, we just couldn’t put the ball in the basket.”
Christine Limbert paced the Lady Tide offense with six points and Nikki Wormuth added five.
Duriancik, looking for the positive spin, said, “We weren’t ready to go tonight and that’s my fault. But we continue to look for small victories during the game that will help us with our confidence level later on.”
Clearfield won the junior varsity contest under the mercy rule, defeating the Lady Tide youngsters 55-4. Alayna Ryan had 17 with Nikki Brossard scoring 14 and Brooke Cline 10 in the Bison victory.
Both teams are back in action on Monday with Clearfield, 4-5, playing at home against Punxsutawney and Curwensville, 0-6, will travel to DuBois Central Catholic.
CLEARFIELD – 63
Margo Castagnolo 4 0-0 9, Emily Ryan 6 4-6 16, Ally Lindstrom 1 0-0 2, Samantha Rockmore 4 1-2 9, Rachel Glenny 3 5-8 11, Brooke Cline 3 0-0 6, Niki Chew 1 0-0 2, Alayna Ryan 2 0-0 4, Nikki Brossard 1 0-2 2, Kate Lansberry 1 0-0 2, TOTALS – 26 10-18 63
CURWENSVILLE – 24
Nikki Wormuth 2 1-2 5, Hannah Dixon 2 0-0 4, Christine Limbert 2 2-4 6, Kristina McCracken 0 2-4 2, Shauna Guy 2 0-0 4, Madison Weber 1 0-2 2, Madison McCracken 0 0-0 0, Mikayla Warren 0 0-0 0, Madison Olson 0 0-0 0, Kaitlyn McCracken 0 0-0 0, Britney Wagner 0 1-2 1, TOTALS – 9 6-14 24
SCORE BY QUARTERS
CLEARFIELD 20 13 17 13 63
CURWENSVILLE 10 8 0 6 24
THREE-POINTERS: CLEARFIELD – Castagnolo CURWENSVILLE – NONE
OFFICIALS: Bill Zupich, Bill Overly, Rich Gormont
