In a game that was a mismatch from the start, the Claysburg-Kimmel girls ran roughshod over the inexperienced Bellwood-Antis girls 62-25 at Claysburg on Tuesday night.
Led by Lady Bulldog career scoring leader Lacey Claar and Marissa Leslie, Claysburg-Kimmel carved out scoring margins in each of the four periods, including 16-6 and 16-4 in the opening two stanzas to take a 32-10 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Claysburg jumped out to a 6-0 lead before Brittany Webb took it all the way down the court to the hoop for a basket. Down 10-2, Bellwood-Antis sliced the lead to 12-6 on buckets by Liz Erickson and Victoria Lombardo, but the Claysburg girls closed out the opening quarter with four more points and a 10-point lead. Rebecca Luciano scored all of her eight points in then opening quarter to lead the Lady Bulldogs to their quick start.
A free throw from Erickson was the only score of the second quarter, until the Lady Bulldogs had pressured and run the deficit to 30-7. Freshman Alycia Hippo hit a late jumper and Webb added a foul shot to go into the halftime intermission down 32-10.
Both teams took to long-range shooting at the beginning of the third quarter. Chelsea Young popped in a three-pointer to open the scoring for the Lady Blue Devils, and that was countered by a trey from Leslie, who led all scorers with 22 points. Then following a regular basket by Claysburg’s Monica Iachini, Ashley Lechner hit a trey, immediately followed by a three-pointer by Claar, who added 16 points. Leslie then added a conventional three-point play on a basket and foul shot, Claar converted both ends of a one-an-one at the foul line and Leslie completed a 15-6 third quarter to give Claysburg-Kimmel a 47-16 lead at the end of three.
Erickson canned a free throw and Crixella Jones hit a basket to begin the fourth quarter, but Claar came back with a basket and free throw, Leslie added a bucket and Iachini drilled two foul shots to lead Claysburg-Kimmel on a 12-1 streak, that saw just a single point from the charity line by Erickson for the Lady Blue Devils.
Alycia Hippo provided the best B-A stretch with three straight baskets to cut the score to 60-25, before Claysburg added one final bucket.
“I thought in the second half we came out a little more aggressively offensively,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Ali Stodart, who was searching for some positives in describing the ballgame. “We are still having trouble taking care of the ball. We need to be more offensive, to have five people willing to step up and say, ’I’m going to make the pass, I’m going to take the shot,’ and not be afraid of making a bad pass or bad shot. We are kind of playing not to make a bad pass, instead of making a pass or shot that they know is going to get there or go in.”
Hippo led the Lady Blue Devils with eight points. Victoria Lombardo pulled down 11 rebounds, Shalee Hunter and Erickson each had six rebounds and Brittany Webb, all of 5-foot-5, had five rebounds and four steals.
Bellwood-Antis (0-4) hosts Moshannon Valley on Friday.
Claysburg-Kimmel 62 Bellwood-Antis 25
Bellwood-Antis – Webb 1 1-2 3, Young 1 0-0 3, Lombardo 1 0-0 2, Lender 0 0-0 0, Lechner 1 0-0 3, Hunter 0 0-0 0, Erickson 1 2-6 4, Jones 1 0-1 2, Cherry 0 0-0 0, Hippo 4 0-0 8. TOTALS 10 3-9 25.
Claysburg-Kimmel – L. Claar 6 3-3 16, Leslie 10 1-2 22, Iachini 2 4-8 8, A. Claar 1 1-4 3, Luciano 4 0-0 8, Burkey 1 0-0 2, Gerhaim 0 0-0 0, Meissner 0 0-0 0, Strayer 1 0-0 2, C. Claar 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 25 10-19 62.
Bellwood-Antis 6 4 6 9 – 25
Claysburg-Kimmel 16 16 15 15 – 62
Three-point goals: Bellwood-Antis 2 (Young, Lechner).
Claysburg-Kimmel 2 (L. Claar, Leslie).
