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Clearfield girls continue winning ways with victory over Brookville
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
By Jon Christoff Sports Writer
HYDE - Through its first six games of the season, the Clearfield girls basketball team has had at least two players score in double digits.
For Tuesday's contest against Brookville, though, all the Lady Bisons needed was one.
Clearfield got a 15-point, nine-rebound effort from senior forward Amber Byerly, and used a stout defensive effort to limit the Lady Blue Raiders to 10 field goals in a 39-28 victory.
While the Lady Bisons played solid defense and harassed the Brookville offense, the Clearfield offense also struggled.
The Lady Bisons entered the contest averaging 62.7 points per game, but finished just 14-of-59 from the floor.
"Our dribble-and-drive penetration just wasn't working, and you've got to hand it to Brookville for playing tough defense," said Clearfield head coach Joey Castagnolo. "I think we finally opened it up inside with Amber, and that sure did help a lot.
"Offensively, we weren't firing on all cylinders tonight. I don't know if it was because of the good defense (or not). I thought our posts played real well together, especially in the third quarter with some nice passes."
The defensive prowess - or sloppy offense - of each team was on display early, as the game was scoreless for nearly the first three minutes.
Jayme Ryan opened the scoring for the Lady Bisons with one of her two 3-pointers, but a Byerly foul shot with 16 seconds left was the difference heading into the second.
In the second, Ryan started things off once more with another trifecta, while buckets from Byerly and Madison Sopic made it 17-9 with 6:01 left in the half - prompting Brookville to call timeout.
After taking a nine-point edge into halftime, Clearfield's defense put together another solid effort in the third.
The Lady Raiders netted just five points in the stanza with three coming on a three from Brynna Hetrick, who was the focal point of the Lady Bisons' defense.
Hetrick finished the game with 10 points for Brookville, which was led by Emily Ferraro's 13.
"I was worried about Hetrick because she's their 3-point specialist," Castagnolo said. "We trapped, we jumped the passing lanes ... we did real well defensively. Offensively, I thought they played good defense on us. When we had the shots ... we just weren't converting the easy ones again."
Early in the fourth quarter, it was the Byerly and Elizabeth Peters Show, as the duo dominated the play before Peters fouled out with 5:12 to play.
The senior tandem scored the first seven points of the stanza to make it a 39-20 contest when Peters drew her fifth foul.
From there, Clearfield was held off the scoreboard and the Lady Raiders netted the final eight points of the game.
Sopic was the closest Lady Bison to double figures, as she finished with nine points and a game-high 12 rebounds.
"Our rebounding was excellent on both ends," said Castagnolo. "I thought it won the game for us. ... It was a league win. We're 2-0 heading to DuBois. It wasn't one of our finer efforts, but I'll take it."
Clearfield, which improved to 6-1 overall, travels to face its D-9 League rival on Friday.
The Lady Bisons won the junior varsity game, 31-26, to improve to 4-3 on the season. Clearfield's Rachel Thompson led her team with nine points. Brookville-28
Cook 0 1-4 1, Hill 1 0-0 2, Hetrick 4 0-0 10, Ferraro 4 5-6 13, Shaffer 0 0-0 0, Peer 0 0-0 0, Snell 0 0-0 0, Ross 1 0-0 2, Smith 0 0-0 0, Reinsel 0 0-0 0. Totals: 10 6-10 28. Clearfield-39
Porter 0 0-0 0, Sopic 4 1-2 9, Ja. Ryan 2 0-0 6, E. Peters 2 1-2 5, Byerly 5 5-8 15, Zalno 0 0-0 0, Moore 0 0-0 0, B. Peters 1 2-2 4, Ambuski 0 0-0 0, Thompson 0 0-0 0. Totals: 14 9-14 39.
Three-pointers: Hetrick 2; Ja. Ryan 2.
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