BROOKVILLE — The Clearfield Area High School girls basketball team held Clarion-Limestone to no field goals in the first half and breezed to a 60-19 victory Saturday afternoon in the consolation game of the 24th Brookville Tip-Off Tournament.
The overmatched Lady Lions misfired on 18 attempts and turned the ball over 20 times while the Lady Bison were rolling to a 35-3 bulge by intermission.
The Lady Bison’s play on the offensive end in the first quarter did not sit well with coach Joey Castagnolo though.
Although they led 12-1 on four three-pointers, two by Alayna Ryan and one by Karlie Gisewhite from the top of the key and one by Megan Durandetta from the right wing, the Lady Bison were off target on 19 other shots, and they still were not sharp coming out of the first rest stop.
“I was not happy there,” Castagnolo said. “That’s why I call that timeout. I said, ‘Come on girls, we need to clean this up.’
“Then we got in gear.”
Ryan’s steal and layup 1:37 into the second period ignited a 23-point run over the next five minutes.
“We were not executing properly on offense, and I had to bring the girls out (on the perimeter) to get us moving. They started putting pressure on the point guard, and then things went our way, because we ran the floor and started getting into the flow of the game.”
Brooke Cline and Ryan led the charge with eight and seven points, respectively.
While the scrappy Lady Lions (0-2) were more competitive in the second half, thanks to nine points by freshman starter Anna Kennemuth, the Lady Bison gradually pulled away to the 40-point advantage, 56-16 with 5:05 left, that triggered the Mercy Rule and a running clock.
Castagnolo was pleased with scoring balance again as Ryan topped the Lady Bison with 15 points to go with a handful of assists and steals, Nikki Brossard followed with 12 on soft jumpers and layups off Ryan feeds, Cline finished with 10 and Tesa Miller added a career-high eight and grabbed seven rebounds.
The reserves logged a worthwhile share of minutes with Gisewhite hitting a pair of three-pointers and freshman Paige Rhine adding her first four points while snaring a game-high nine rebounds.
“I was happy with the bench,” Castagnolo said. “I didn’t like putting all the young kids in at once, but it’s just the way the game dictated.”
The Lady Bison missed more than a dozen three-point tries while shooting 36 percent (25-for-69), but Castagnolo kept that in perspective.
“That’s okay, because I said going into the season I wanted to stress having threats for three-pointers, and at least we got some game situations of shooting threes,” he said.
Ryan and Cline were named to the all-tournament team along with North Clarion’s Tori Obenrader and Abby Gatesmen and Brookville’s Morgan Johnson and Marcy Schindler.
Obenrader, who keyed the She-Wolves’ 58-51 win over Clearfield in the first round with 25 points and 18 rebounds, was even more instrumental in their 63-48 championship game victory Saturday evening with a 33-28 double-double to walk off with Most Valuable Player honors.
Clearfield will take its 1-1 record to Martinsburg Wednesday for their Mountain League opener against Central.
CLEARFIELD — 60
Tesa Miller 4 0-0 8, Megan Durandetta 1 0-0 3, Alayna Ryan 6 0-0 15, Nikki Brossard 6 0-0 12, Brooke Cline 4 2-2 10, Karlie Gisewhite 2 0-2 6, McLain Alt 0 2-2 2, Paige Rhine 2 0-0 4, Adrian Rowles 0 0-0 0, Kylie VanTassel 0 0-1 0, Alyssa Twigg 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 25 4-8 60.
CLARION-LIMESTONE — 19
Jess Ball 0 0-0 0, Anna Burns 0 2-2 2, Morgan Clark 2 1-2 5, Maddy Craig 0 1-2 1, Anna Kennemuth 4 1-3 9, Abby Simpson 0 0-0 0, Janelle Pezzuti 0 0-2 0, Emma Smith 0 0-0 0, Monica Heath 1 0-1 2, Ashley Daugherty 0 0-0 0, Sydney Simpson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 7 5-12 19.
Three-Point Field Goals – Clearfield 6 (Durandetta 1, Ryan 3, Gisewhite 2).
Score by Quarters
Clearfield 12 23 15 10 – 60
Clarion-Limestone 1 2 12 4 – 19
Officials – Bill Overly, Ron Dolby and Barry Vasbinder.
Lady Bison Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/09 | @ Brookville Tip-off Tourney | ||
| 12/09 | vs. North Clarion | 51 – 58 | 0 – 1 |
| 12/10 | vs. Clarion-Limestone | 60 – 19 | 1 – 1 |
| 12/13 | @ Central | ||
| 12/15 | HUNTINGDON | ||
| 12/18 | @ Brookville | ||
| 12/19 | BELLEFONTE | ||
| 12/22 | @ DuBois | ||
| 12/28 | @ Curwensville | ||
| 01/03 | PUNXSUTAWNEY | ||
| 01/05 | @ Tyrone | ||
| 01/09 | BALD EAGLE AREA | ||
| 01/12 | @ Penns Valley | ||
| 01/15 | @ St. Marys | ||
| 01/17 | PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA | ||
| 01/19 | CENTRAL | ||
| 01/23 | @ Huntingdon | ||
| 01/26 | @ Bellefonte | ||
| 01/31 | TYRONE | ||
| 02/02 | @ Bald Eagle Area | ||
| 02/06 | PENNS VALLEY | ||
| 02/09 | @ Philipsburg-Osceola | ||
| 02/13 | CURWENSVILLE |