 The
Southview girls basketball team claimed a misleading
53-43 victory at Perrysburg last night.
The victory wasn't misleading,
because the Cougars dominated the fourth quarter at
both ends of the court, outscoring the home team
21-12 in that period to earn the win.
But in the first three periods
Southview found itself in more of a battle than it
might have expected.
Yes, Perrysburg had handed the
Cougars their only Northern Lakes League loss
earlier this season. But last night the Yellow
Jackets were without Kelsea Newman, who sprained her
foot against Springfield Saturday and is day-to-day.
Kirsten Goins, who started in
Newman's place, responded with 10 points. But it was
still a bit surprising that the Cougars needed a
fast finish to claim the win and improve to 15-2
overall and 10-1 in the NLL.
Perrysburg is 12-5 overall and 8-3
in the league.
"I never felt comfortable in this
game," Southview coach Todd Bostater admitted. "We
came out and played hard, but I never thought we
played championship-level hard.
"I think part of it was because
Kelsea Newman wasn't playing. But I told our girls
that Perrysburg was a good team that would play
hard, and that we needed to be ready to play."
Both teams were sluggish in the
opening quarter, with Southview holding a 12-8
advantage that it quickly expanded to 19-12 with
4:41 left before halftime.
But the Yellow Jackets scored the
final 10 points of the half to lead 22-19 at the
break. Erin Mesker had six of her team-high 13
points in that period as Perrysburg dominated play
in the paint.
"That [run] doesn't surprise me
with this team," Perrysburg coach Todd Sims said.
"Effort is never a problem with this team. I knew we
would fight.
"We tried to beat them inside, and
for three quarters we did."
In the third quarter the lead
yo-yoed back and forth, with the lead switching
hands five times before Southview took a 32-31 lead
into the final period.
That's when the Cougars took
charge, scoring the first five points of the period
and using a 13-4 run to take command of the game.
"We started to play more as a
team," junior Taylor Hall said of her team's
fourth-quarter run. "We started to move more without
the ball, and we made the extra pass instead of
going one-on-one."
It also helped that the Southview
defense forced the Yellow Jackets to commit eight of
their 20 turnovers in the final quarter.
"Our goal was to pressure their
guards," Bostater said. "We have quick, athletic
guards, and even if we don't get steals we felt we
were going to wear them down."
And the death knell for Perrysburg
was the Cougars' fine 3-point shooting. Southview
made all three of its 3-point shots in the fourth
quarter and 8 of 11 3-pointers in the game.
"Turnovers were a problem for us,
and they were making shots," Sims said. "I was
hoping a few of their shots wouldn't go in, but when
they did they started their press. And we had some
ball-handling problems."
Hall led all scorers with 18
points and was backed by 12 from Tiffany Scott and
10 from Ariel Gaston as the Cougars set up a
winner-takes-all showdown for the league title at
Northview Saturday.
"It was very important to get this
win," Hall said. "We wanted a shot to win the
championship, and we were mad when [Perrysburg] beat
us at the buzzer the first time.
"We just need to focus, get our
offense and defense to work together and really work
as a team to win Saturday."
Contact John Wagner at:
jwagner@theblade.com
or 419-724-6481. |
