Bridget Lyons of Avon Lake scores on a fast break against Westlake’s Natalie Bechtel during last Satruday’s Southwestern Conference game. The Shoregals won, 54-52, to win their ninth straight game of the season. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Shoregals stun Demons, win ninth straight
By Jim Horvath
Sports
Published Jan. 27, 2010

With three losses, the Avon Lake girls basketball team probably won’t win the Southwestern Conference championship this year.

But after last Saturday’s 54-52 win at Westlake, the Shoregals could definitely have a say in who does.

Avon Lake stunned the Demons, the defending SWC champions, to win its ninth straight game and move to 11-3 overall. Their 5-3 league mark has them three games behind conference leader Midpark (8-0) and Westlake (6-2).

“We were really out of sync today,” said Westlake head coach Chip Weiss, whose team dropped its second straight after dropping a 45-41 decision to Smithville earlier in the week at the annual Classic in the Country.

“There was just too much one-on-one out there,” Weiss said. “We weren’t smooth at all. We had dropped passes, missed layups, bad timing on rebounds. I don’t know why, but the bottom line is that we didn’t take good care of the ball.”

It was an intense, yet sloppy game for both teams from the very start. Westlake had 11 turnovers in the first half and Avon Lake nine. But despite the miscues, the Shoregals seemed to be one step ahead of their hosts most of the afternoon.

Avon Lake took a 9-2 lead in the first quarter on a 9-0 run that was capped off by a Lindsey Nock 3-pointer. The Shoregals held a 13-9 lead after the first quarter, then got another Nock trey in the final seconds of the half to take a 26-23 lead into the locker room.

It was anybody’s game at that point, especially with both teams struggling offensively. Westlake made just eight of 33 field goal attempts that half, while Avon Lake converted on just 10 of 29. That made for some gaudy numbers in the rebounding department, with the Demons pulling down 22 and the Shoregals 20.

Westlake opened the second half with baskets by Kalpana Beach and Coletta Carmichael to take a short-lived 27-26 lead. A Beach trey gave the Demons another small lead at 30-28, but the visitors went on a 10-2 run to regain control at 38-32.

Down 42-38 to start the fourth quarter, Westlake rallied to take a 45-42 lead. Beach got a rebound for two, then scored a conventional 3-point play with 6:08 left in the game. A Kristie Prendergast baseline jumper from the right side made it 45-42, Demons.

But the Shoregals refused to crumble.

With the two teams trading trips to the free throw line, Avon Lake got to within a point, 48-47, on a pair of freebies from sophomore guard Lacy LeDuc. A steal for two from senior forward Bridget Lyons allowed Avon Lake to regain the lead at 49-48 with 1:07 to go.

After a timeout, Westlake missed a bunny layup on an inbounds play, with Leduc getting the rebound. She was immediately fouled and hit both ends of a one-and-one to make it 51-48 with :48.8 remaining. The march to the charity stripe continued as Beach was fouled on a 3-point attempt. The Notre Dame recruit hit two of the first three tosses to get the Demons back to within a point, 51-50, with 30.9 ticks left on the clock.

LeDuc was again fouled, and again made both ends of the bonus to push the lead back out to three, 53-50, with 25.1 seconds to go. Westlake brought the ball down and got off a 3-point shot that hit the front of the rim and into the hands of junior guard Kelly Bruce.

Bruce missed her first attempt in the double bonus, but nailed the second to make it 54-50. A rebounded jumper from Beach accounted for the final score.

Beach, a junior, led all scorers with 29 points to go with 18 rebounds. Senior post player Lauryn Smith had 14 points and eight rebounds, but there wasn’t much else offensively for the Demons. Not helping Westlake was the loss of senior guards Sammy Kilbane (concussion) and Julie Laraway (illness).

“We came in here today feeling that Beach would get her 30 to 40 points, but that we wanted to shut down everybody else,” said Avon Lake head coach Frank Coughlin. “I don’t know if we did that or not, but we did have a lot of our players who stepped up and helped.”

Bruce and Leduc each had 12 points to lead a balanced Avon Lake attack, with Lyons chipping in with 10 points and nine rebounds. And while Westlake had five turnovers in the final quarter, the Shoregals cleaned up their game with just one in the fourth.

“We work a lot on that in practice,” Coughlin said. “We put the kids in pressure situations so they’ll know how to handle them. We have players make a mistake, but come right back and make a good play to help us. There were several times where we could have folded, but the kids are just really coming together now.

“I really like the timing of this, coming at the end of the year,” Coughlin said. “We have been playing some good teams, and everybody knows how good Westlake is. We’ll enjoy this today and tomorrow, then get back to work on Monday.”

The Shoregals put their streak on the line tonight when they host Amherst, which is also 5-3 in the SWC. They’ll take on league-leading Midpark this Saturday.

Westlake, now 11-3 overall, is on the road at Berea tonight. The Demons will return home for a Saturday afternoon contest with North Olmsted.

“We still have a mission,” said Weiss about his team’s chances in the SWC. “We still want to win the league, although now we obviously need some help. We’ll focus on every single game like it’s our last and make sure we’re ready to do when the tournament comes around.”