HYDE — With his Clearfield Area High School girls basketball team riding a four-game winning streak, coach Joey Castagnolo was anxious to see what strides the Lady Bison had made since absorbing their worst loss of the season at Central in mid-December.
The Lady Bison did play much better defensively, but they never found their shooting touch, and the Lady Dragons overcame their own shooting woes from the floor to survive, 36-23, in a low-scoring Mountain League scrap in the Bison Gymnasium Wednesday night.
The defenses, Central’s man and Clearfield’s match-up zone, dominated throughout as neither team could trigger any kind of a run after the Lady Dragons scored all eight points in the first four minutes.
The Lady Bison (8-6, 3-4 ML) came out ice cold, with Brooke Cline’s fast-break layup, almost five minutes after the opening tip, their lone field goal in 12 attempts.
“I told the girls to be loosey-goosey, that we had nothing to lose,” Castagnolo said. “But we were tight, and I don’t understand why. We didn’t look good in that first quarter.”
Fueled by Cassie Mock’s eight points, the second-place Lady Dragons (9-4, 7-1 ML) opened a 14-4 lead at the first rest stop by swishing all eight of their free throws.
Clearfield struggled again in the first six minutes of the second quarter, Alayna Ryan grabbing a rebound and going coast-to-coast for the hosts’ only basket in 11 shots.
Only late field goals by Cline and Ryan got the Lady Bison into double digits as they trailed 25-10 at intermission.
Their fortunes didn’t get any better in the third period, going 1-for-7 from the field and falling further behind, 34-14.
“Give them credit for the defense,” Castagnolo said. “The pressure, too. It was tough. They didn’t give us anything.”
Clearfield did keep playing hard and made the final score more respectable with a 9-2 edge in the fourth period.
“That’s a positive that we scored against their A unit in the fourth quarter,” Castagnolo noted. “Another positive was our defense. They scored 64 down there and we cut that almost in half.
“They’re a good team, fundamentally strong. Talent wise, they’re better than us, but I thought we gave them a battle. We needed to play a perfect game, and we didn’t.
“All in all, I hope we can learn from this and play well against the teams we should beat.”
Mock finished with 10 points while two-time ML All-Star Hannah Johnston had a game-high 12 for the Scarlet Dragons, who made up for 12-for-61 shooting by outrebounding the Lady Bison 47-29 with Tierney Fernandez and Kylie Metzger snaring 10 and nine, respectively.
Topping the Lady Bison were Ryan with nine points and Niki Chew with eight rebounds.
Clearfield ended up shooting 20 percent (9-for-45) from the floor and 25 percent (4-for-16) at the free throw stripe.
“We might have really given them a game if we had connected on some of those,” Castagnolo said upon hearing those numbers.
The Lady Bison will try to rebound Friday when they travel to Huntingdon looking for a sweep. They defeated the Lady Bearcats 43-35 Dec. 16.
Central also won the junior varsity game, 44-3.
CENTRAL — 36
Hannah Johnston 3 5-6 12, Cassie Mock 3 4-4 10, Tierney Fernandez 2 0- 4, Lauren Kensinger 1 0-0 2, Kylie Metzger 2 2-4 6, Erin Brumbaugh 0 0-0 0, Maddie Metzler 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 12 11-14 36.
CLEARFIELD — 23
Nikki Brossard 1 1-4 3, Niki Chew 1 0-0 2, Brooke Cline 3 0-4 6, Alayna Ryan 3 2-4 9, Ally Lindstrom 1 1-4 3, Tesa Miller 0 0-0 0, Alexis Clark 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 9 4-16 23.
Three-Point Field Goals – Central 1 (Johnston); Clearfield 1 (Ryan).
Score by Quarters
Central 14 11 9 2 – 36
Clearfield 4 6 4 9 – 23
Officials – Chuck Glasser, Erik Kormos and Garrett Glasser.
Lady Bison Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/09&10 | @ Brookville Tip-off Tourney | ||
| 12/09 | vs. Clarion-Limestone | 64 – 22 | 1 – 0 |
| 12/10 | vs. North Clarion | 39 – 51 | 1 – 1 |
| 12/14 | @ Central | 24 – 64 | 1 – 2 |
| 12/16 | HUNTINGDON | 43 – 35 | 2 – 2 |
| 12/19 | BELLEFONTE | 52 – 55 | 2 – 3 |
| 12/21 | @ Tyrone | 47 – 65 | 2 – 4 |
| 12/23 | DUBOIS | 52 – 45 | 3 – 4 |
| 12/28 | CURWENSVILLE | 52 – 51 | 4 – 4 |
| 01/03 | @ Punxsutawney | 33 – 50 | 4 – 5 |
| 01/06 | BALD EAGLE AREA | 46 – 27 | 5 – 5 |
| 01/09 | BROOKVILLE | 45 – 25 | 6 – 5 |
| 01/10 | @ Penns Valley | ppd. | 6 – 5 |
| 01/13 | PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA | 58 – 55 | 7 – 5 |
| 01/16 | ST. MARYS | 34 – 27 | 8 – 5 |
| 01/18 | CENTRAL | 23 – 36 | 8 – 6 |
| 01/20 | @ Huntingdon | ||
| 01/23 | @ Bellefonte | ||
| 01/25 | @ Penns Valley | ||
| 01/27 | TYRONE | ||
| 02/01 | @ Penns Valley | ||
| 02/03 | PENNS VALLEY | ||
| 02/07 | PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA | ||
| 02/08 | @ Curwensville |