C-L girls fall to Cranberry, 73-26

Thursday, February 16, 2012

STRATTANVILLE - The Clarion-Limestone Lady Lions basketball team ran into a stout Cranberry squad in closing out the home portion of its season as the Lady Berries raced to a 73-26 victory Monday night.
Emily Merryman scored a game-high 22 points with six steals and six assists, Kylie Mason added 20 points with four 3-pointers, and Sune Swart added 12 points and 11 rebounds to lead Cranberry.
Jess Wolbert and Alissa Burns scored six points each to lead Clarion-Limestone which dropped to 9-12 going into its season finale Wednesday at North Clarion.
"They are a solid team with a lot of good athletes," said C-L head coach Doug Rodgers. "I just thought we'd come out with a little more intensity tonight. It almost seemed that we had a couple girls who had given up on us."
Cranberry raced out to a 24-7 lead after one quarter including an 11-0 run to end the frame.
Mason scored 10 of her total in the first for Cranberry.
Cranberry continued its onslaught in the second with a 14-2 run to start the quarter pushing the lead to 38-9. A 10-7 advantage the rest of the way set the score at 48-16 by halftime.
"I've been coaching a long time in different sports and I honestly don't know what happened after the start we had to the season," said Rodgers, alluding to a 5-1 start but 4-11 record since. "Somewhere along the way it just seemed the lights were shut off and that was it."
Merryman scored 12 of her total in the second quarter.
Cranberry held a 16-5 scoring advantage in the third quarter for a 64-21 lead after three.
With the running clock during the fourth quarter and mostly junior varsity players in the game the Lady Berries held a 9-5 advantage to set the final score.
Turnovers plagued C-L the entire game, but especially in the first half when it committed 22 of its 32 overall miscues.
Shooting also proved a problem as when they weren't committing turnovers and getting shots, they wouldn't fall as the Lady Lions made just 10 shots from the floor. C-L also made just 5 of 14 free throws.
"The jayvee kids played hard in both games tonight," said Rodgers. "They show a little more emotion and all we were looking for tonight was effort and those kids definitely gave the effort."
Abby Mellott had a fine offensive performance in the junior varsity game with 23 points while Alissa Burns and Emily Hawthorn each added 11. The Lady Lions won, 49-28.