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Friday, 05 January 2007 |
 Wapakoneta?s Devon Golden (24) pulls down a rebound Thursday night in Western Buckeye League girls varsity basketball at St. Marys. (Staff photo/ Mike Burkholder)
By PHIL McLEAN
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — The first four minutes of the game looked like a typical Wapakoneta Redskins-St. Marys Roughriders varsity girls basketball game.
Fans witnessed two ties and three lead changes before the Wapakoneta Redskins pulled away for a 70-45 victory and their fourth Western Buckeye League win of the season. The Redskins improved to 9-2 on the season, while the Roughriders fell to 3-6 on the season and 0-4 in the WBL.
“Wapakoneta is a very good basketball team,” St. Marys coach Tim Niekamp said. “For about four minutes in the second quarter and two or three minutes in the second quarter we played solid basketball. The rest of the game belonged to Wapakoneta.”
Roughrider senior forward Steph Platt opened the scoring in the game and the lead bounced back and forth until the Redskins sophomore guard Devon Golden was fouled and went to the charity stripe for two shots. She converted both giving Wapakoneta a 5-4 lead. Wapakoneta would not trail again in the game.
The Redskins charged out to an 18-7 lead after the first quarter, and then Wapakoneta sophomore guard Emily Steveley opened the second period with back-to-back treys and the Redskins maintained a large lead heading into the final minutes of the half.
Beginning at the 2:56 mark of the second period, St. Marys outscored the Redskins 12-5 to close the gap to 33-24.
“We turned the ball over and threw passes that we shouldn’t have thrown,” Wapakoneta coach Brad Rex said.
St. Marys’ pressure defense caused the Redskins into turnovers during the run. But the Redskins came back with a flurry to open the second half. During the first four minutes of the third quarter, Heidi Schlegel and Lindsey Kentner combined for 10 unanswered points. St. Marys chased Wapakoneta the rest of the way.
“We shot well tonight,” said Rex, whose squad shot 46 percent from the field for the game, making 25 of their attempts, and were 10-of-13 from the free-throw line.
Redskin senior Lindsey Kentner earned game-high scoring honors in Thursday’s match-up, collecting 21 points.
“It was a total team win,” said Rex, who had 10 of the 11 varsity players scoring in the game with five of those players accounting for 10 field goals from behind the 3-point arc.
Emily Steveley scored 9 points, including two second quarter treys, and Redskin senior guard Brittany Duff scored in double digits with 10 points on the night.
St. Marys junior forward Lea Mackenbach lead the Roughriders with 15 points, with Platt contributing 12 points to the effort.
Rex said he is encouraged by his squad’s play, but he cautioned them of being overconfident.
“We kind of expected to be at the top,” Rex said. “But we cannot lose focus — we have to come to play every game.”
Wapakoneta won the junior varsity game 36-34, the third straight win for the Redskin junior varsity squad. Katie Greve scored 10 points to lead Wapakoneta, while Kaelia Crawford scored 10 points to lead St. Marys.
The Roughriders will host Toledo Scott at 1 p.m. Saturday. Wapakoneta will get the weekend off and hit the road on Monday to travel to Findlay where they will meet the Trojans. The junior varsity game gets underway at 6 p.m. |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 06 January 2007 )
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