Lake County Sentinel
Lady Devils trap Badgers 41-26
BY TIM SHIRER
SPORTS EDITOR
(WICKLIFFE, OH) - .Thursday night at the Campus of Wickliffe in the Blue Gym the Wickliffe Lady Devils (6-1, 3-1 CVC) basketball team welcomed the Berkshire Badgers (1-6, 1-3). The Blue Devils won a tough game on Tuesday against the Kirtland Hornets 36-25 which made head coach Jason Moulton incredibly happy. After Thursday night’s game Moulton was happy again as his Lady Devils dominated the second half enroute to a 41-26 win.
The Blue Devils surrendered only five points in the first quarter to the Badgers while being held to nine as they held a 9-5 lead at the end of the first eight minutes. Wickliffe junior Ava Gabriel led all scorers with first quarter points, Badgers senior Hayley Stoddard paced Berkshire with three points.
The second quarter was a different story as the Badgers outscored the Blue Devils 11-7 in large part to Wickliffe going cold and did not score for 5:43.8 until finally tying the game 16-16 with just :00.2 left on the second quarter clock. The Badgers took their only lead of the game at 16-14 with 2:30 left in the half on a three pointer by junior Jenna Hornak. Hornak led all scorers in the quarter with six points including two three-pointers. Gabriel was held to one three-pointer in the second period but still led everyone in scoring at the Break with eight points. Hornak led the Badgers with six points. Turnovers played a huge role in the first half as both teams committed too many and the biggest problem was traveling.
Once the second half began after a delay waiting for the officials to come out of their locker room the Lady Devils took over and scored the first 14 points of the quarter to take a 30-16 lead and the game was comfortably in Wickliffe’s control. The Badgers had an even worse cold spell than Wickliffe did in the first quarter. Berkshire went 8:46 spanning from the 2:30 mark in the second quarter to 1:44 left in the third quarter between scoring. The drought for the Badgers ended when senior Maddie Smetana dropped in a layup. Wickliffe senior Samara Young smoothly put in a layup with :10.4 left on the clock giving the Lady Devils a commanding 32-18 lead through three quarters. Gabriel scored 10 of Wickliffe’s 16 points in the third to have 18 points after 24 minutes. Hornak still led the Badgers with eight points.
The fourth quarter was closer, but the Lady Devils were in control and coach Moulton played a lot of subs giving his starters a break for most of the quarter. Garbiel scored her final points of the game from the free throw line with 2:12 left on the clock. She was eight of eight from the free throw line and hit four three-pointers leading all scorers with 24 points. Hornak finished with eight points for the Badgers.
The Lady Devils will be back in action on Tuesday night when they travel to Mantua to play the Crestwood Red Devils (3-3, 2-1) at 6:15 pm.
tshirer@lakecountysentinel.com follow Tim on Twitter @TBBucsTim or follow us on Twitter @LCSentinelcom
POSTED 12/14/2023 22:20
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Photo by Rebecca Shirer
