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Clearfield tops Ridgway
Thursday, January 07, 2010
By Josh Mlot Sports Writer
HYDE - The Clearfield girls basketball team couldn't capitalize on turnovers, couldn't hit its shots and couldn't rebound. Yet it still held a three-point advantage over Ridgway at halftime. Then the Lady Bisons showed up.
The home side snapped out of a first-half funk to explode in the third quarter, opening up a 20-point gap and going on to defeat the Lady Elkers, 55-37, Wednesday night at Arthur J. Weiss Gymnasium.
"I told them, ‘Girls, if you want to have a real successful season, you can't be messing around with this team. ... If you guys want to be successful, you've got to start busting your butts,' " Clearfield head coach Joe Castagnolo said.
" ‘We're going full-court man, and you guys better move.' "
Jayme Ryan sank a 3-pointer with 5:49 to go in the third - after missing six long-range attempts in the first half - to spark a 24-4 run that lasted the rest of the stanza and put Clearfield up 45-25 going into the final period of play.
"It seemed like we played with more confidence," Castagnolo said. "Jayme hit a 3, and I think that got us fired up a little bit."
Gwenn Porter led the Lady Bisons with 14 points, despite struggling from the foul line, much as her entire team did - Clearfield was 11-of-25 from the charity stripe.
Porter's offensive output was matched by Ridgway's Bryton Dyboski, who led the visitors with 14 points while her side's second-leading scorer, Bekka Leitzel, missed the game with the flu.
Clearfield (4-1, 1-0 District 9 League) also got double-digit efforts from Madison Sopic, with 12 points, and Amber Byerly, who finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
That rebounding was as critical as anything the Lady Bisons did in their third-quarter turnaround.
After being dominated on the boards through 16 minutes - the Lady Elkers held a 22-15 advantage at halftime - the hosts flipped the script, outrebounding Ridgway by the same margin the rest of the way.
"I think the girls just realized, ‘Hey, let's wake up,' " Castagnolo said. "And I was really proud of that third quarter. That was really the difference, getting those rebounds."
The defensive full-court pressure also got things going, allowing some easy transition baskets on turnovers, of which Ridgway had 30 on the night, and speeding up the pace of a game that had settled into the Lady Elkers' wheelhouse at a slow, steady trudge.
"That's just not our style," Castagnolo said. "We can't go slowdown like they wanted, so we picked it up. We just knocked them out of their rhythm.
"I usually don't play man-to-man, but I had to do something to get out of the doldrums. I think it was a hangover from the Philipsburg game, because the girls really thought they were going to win that one. ... I think that had a lot to do with it. But we were up by 10 (in the second quarter), and we should have taken care of business in the first half. We straightened it out in the third quarter, didn't we?"
Porter hit back-to-back fast-break layups in the second quarter that hoisted her team to its early 10-point advantage, but Nicole Breier had four consecutive points for Ridgway as it closed out the second frame on a 7-0 swing that cut the deficit to three midway through the game.
But after Ryan's 3 seemed to cut the tension in the third quarter, Sopic began to get into her rhythm.
The senior wing found her shooting stroke, hitting jumper after jumper, and driving into the lane to stop-and-pop and help her side break open the contest. Sopic had seven points in the period before fouling out with 4:55 to go in the final quarter.
Byerly became a factor inside as well, swishing a turnaround jumper on the baseline to extend the run before Lori Zalno capped the third on a layup with six ticks on the clock.
Porter pushed the tempo in the final eight minutes, picking up two easy layups early in the frame, including a converted basket on a foul, but missed the resulting free throw.
Despite the foul-shooting woes, the trips to the stripe were critical in controlling the game, as Clearfield traveled to the free-throw line 19 times in the second half, compared to only six in the first.
The Lady Bisons now travel to Bradford on Thursday.
"We've got to start getting in a groove now," Castagnolo said. "Sometimes you need games like this to wake up."
In junior varsity action, Clearfield eased past Ridgway, 51-8. Rachel Thompson paced the home side with 10 points while Kristen Butler added eight. Ridgway was led by four from Alyson Dyboski. Ridgway-37
Breier 2 2-2 6, Redmond 1 1-2 3, Shirey 1 0-6 3, Horning 3 2-4 8, B. Dyboski 6 2-3 14, Davison 1 0-0 3, Scarnati 0 0-0 0, Lardner 0 0-0 0. Totals: 14 7-17 37.
Clearfield-55
Byerly 2 6-10 10, E. Peters 2 0-0 4, Porter 6 2-7 14, Sopic 5 1-2 12, Ryan 2 0-0 5, Moore 0 0-0 0, B. Peters 2 2-4 6, Zalno 1 0-0 2, Butler 1 0-0 2, Ambuski 0 0-0 0, Thompson 0 0-2 0. Totals: 21 11-25 55.
Three-pointers: Shirey, Davison; Sopic, Ryan
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