Austintown Fitch rolls to win over Garrettsville Garfield at South Range Holiday Hoops Classic
CANFIELD, Ohio - Samantha Severn banked in a 25-footer as the buzzer sounded to end the second quarter.
That was a microcosm of how the game was going for Austintown Fitch in a 61-16 win over Garrettsville Garfield on Thursday at the South Range Holiday Hoops Classic.
"When that one goes in, you know it's your day," Fitch head coach Dan Horacek joked.
After leading just 11-8 midway through the first quarter, the Falcons went on a 27-4 run to take a 38-12 halftime lead. Part of the slow start was due to not having played in nearly two weeks.
But once Fitch got into the flow of the game, their defensive pressure caused issues for the Lady G-Men. Multiple turnovers from a young Garfield team led to easy baskets for Fitch, who started the second quarter on a 12-0 run with field goals by four different players.
"We wanted to pressure the ball and stay aggressive the whole game and cause turnovers," freshman Kaliana Ray said.
After Zoey May got the first - and only - points of the quarter for Garfield, Fitch finished the quarter with the last nine points, including the buzzer beater by Severn.
"We have scorers," said Destinee McCullough, who scored 10 of her 12 points in the first half. "We knew if we leaked out, we would get everybody to score."
The Falcons keyed in defensively on sophomore Mandy Cardinal, who came into the game averaging nearly 16 points per game for the Lady G-Men. The Falcons never let Cardinal out of their sights and held her to a season-low seven points.
"We knew who we had to shut down," McCullough said. "She's a scorer. We just wanted to limit her."
And then the Falcons were even better defensively in the third quarter, outscoring Garfield 15-0 and initiating the OHSAA's running clock with a 35-point lead midway through the quarter.
After McCullough and Severn scored the first two baskets of the third quarter, sisters Ayla Ray and Kaliana Ray scored the next 18 points for the Falcons. Kaliana scored 11 of her game-high 17 points int he second half, while Ayla scored six of her 10 after halftime.
The two sisters had been hoping to spend time on the court together this season, as Ayla will be leaving next year to play softball at Youngstown State. And while they have been able to make their dream come true, it has been a little different than they thought it would be.
"Sometimes we get a little bit aggressive (with each other," Kaliana said. "But most of the time we play pretty well together."
When asked if it was the natural competitive spirit between siblings that has created the aggressiveness, both sisters had the same response at the same time.
"Yeah," Ayla and Kaliana said in unison.
