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Clearfield girls can't overcome Hoohuli's 41 in loss to St. Marys
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
By Josh Mlot Sports Writer
HYDE - All eyes were on Kayla Hoohuli. Meanwhile, the Clearfield girls basketball team nearly stole away the game.
While the St. Marys star was nearly unstoppable despite every defensive effort, the Lady Bisons looked ready to take down the Lady Flying Dutch after grabbing a lead early in the fourth quarter.
But Hoohuli lived up to the billing down the stretch, and 19 points in the fourth quarter alone pushed the visitors over the top, 66-55, Monday night.
The junior guard finished with 41 points, 14 rebounds, five steals, three assists and three blocks.
"I thought we had the perfect game plan to stop her," Clearfield head coach Joey Castagnolo said, "and she's just amazing. I mean, she can hit a turnaround NBA 3-pointer with ease, and we were in her face. I thought we played good defense, it's just that the supporting cast helped her tonight.
"The final score doesn't indicate how hard we played. Coming down the stretch, she did everything for them and we missed a couple easy ones. It looked like we were a little tired, because they put fullcourt pressure on us the whole game. The effort was unbelievable. It was a great high school District 9 basketball game."
The 11-point final deficit belies the drama in Arthur J. Weiss Gymnasium, as Clearfield (9-6) had an answer for everything St. Marys threw at it through three quarters.
Then, with just over seven minutes left in the contest, Madison Sopic drove to the lane and hit a pull-up jumper to give the home side a 48-47 advantage. Sopic finished with a team-high 18 points to go with five rebounds.
But even with 22 points already under her belt, the entire gym seemed to be waiting to see Hoohuli explode. With 6:38 to go she nailed a 3 to give the Lady Dutch the lead, and then sank a fadeaway jumper to go up 52-49.
As if scripted, she scored the final 19 points for St. Marys, going 8-for-8 from the charity stripe over the final four-and-a-half minutes.
"I don't know what else we can do," Castagnolo said. "We were always in her face. Nobody's going to stop her on her drives."
Clearfield grabbed a quick lead, going up 6-0 thanks to a Sopic jumper. Gwenn Porter, who finished with 13 points, kept the gap steady, 8-2, as the frame dragged on, and Sopic struck again with just over a minute left.
Hoohuli didn't get on the board until the final 30 seconds of the first, when she hit a floater to make the score 10-6 after one.
Sopic opened the second with a bucket, before Elizabeth Peters scored the next three points for the Lady Bisons. Peters finished with seven points, as did forward partner Amber Byerly, who also had 11 rebounds.
"What a great game the girls played," Castagnolo said. "Eli (Elizabeth Peters) was a little sick with the flu, but she played, probably, her best offensive game of the year."
But then the St. Marys offense found some success, using a long-range bomb from Amanda Simbeck (10 points) that kicked off an 8-2 run.
Jenna Anderson got another 3 for the Lady Dutch - one of nine - to knot things at 17 with 3:13 to go in the half, and Hoohuli took care of business the rest of the way. Her 12 points in the stanza gave the visitors a three-point lead, 26-23, heading into halftime.
"The difference was that in the first quarter and beginning of the second, we should have taken care of the basketball a little bit better and put some more points on the board," Castagnolo said.
"I knew that (Hoohuli) builds from quarter to quarter to quarter, at least against us, every time."
Peters opened the third with a quick jumper that pulled the Lady Bisons within one, but two minutes later a long 3-pointer from Hoohuli opened things back up for the Lady Dutch.
Down seven, Clearfield kept things tight as Jayme Ryan found her touch from outside the arc, hitting two treys in the third, the second of which pulled her team within five points with just under two minutes to go in the stanza.
That set the table for Sopic, who hit two buckets in the final minute-and-a-half to get Clearfield back within three, 47-44, going into the final eight minutes of play.
The Lady Bisons moved to 3-5 in league play, and travel to Brookville on Friday.
In the junior varsity game, Clearfield bettered St. Marys, 43-37. Breanna Peters and Kristen Butler paced the hosts with 14 and eight points, respectively.
NOTES: Hoohuli had 36 field goal attempts, 20 of which were from beyond the 3-point line. ... Clearfield was out-rebounded 36-31. St. Marys-66
Gennocro 2 0-0 6, Zomcik 0 0-0 0, Gerarge 1 0-0 2, Hoohuli 14 8-9 41, Simbeck 4 1-2 10, Krieg 1 0-0 2, Anderson 2 0-0 5. Totals: 24 9-11 66.
Clearfield-55
Byerly 2 3-4 7, E. Peters 3 1-2 7, Porter 4 4-7 13, Sopic 9 0-0 18, Ja. Ryan 2 0-0 6, B. Peters 2 0-0 4, Moore 0 0-0 0, Zalno 0 0-0 0. Totals: 22 8-13 55.
Three-pointers: Hoohuli 5, Gennocro 2, Simbeck, Anderson; Ryan 2, Porter.
Score by Quarters
St. Marys 6 20 21 19-66
Clearfield 10 13 21 11-55
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