By BEN MURPHY
Cleaver Sportswriter
Through two quarters things were pretty close between the Clare and Standish-Sterling girls basketball teams. The Lady Pioneers dominated the second half though, and they took down the visiting Lady Panthers on a score of 56-22 for a Jack Pine Conference win.
“It was a tight game (early), we really weren’t able to make anything happen,” head coach Shane Kelly said. “(The second half) the girls really played well and outscored them like I thought we could and we were able to pull away from them.”
Clare held a slim 8-5 lead after the first quarter and held a 20-16 advantage at the half. They picked things up in the third to take a 34-20 lead entering the fourth. They held the Panthers to just two points in the final quarter as they continued to pull away.
“The difference was I inserted three players in, Syerra Mills, Marlee Clark and Addie McMillan and it really jump started our defense and intensity and we were running the court, making some shots,” Kelly said. “We’ve struggled putting the ball in the basket but we made some shots, got some easy points and just being able to go 11 deep on our team really makes us tough on other teams.”
The Pioneers were led by Kendra Fouts with 14 points, Sophia Buzzelli had 12 points and Tessa Kelly hit double figures as well getting 10 points. McMillan chipped in with six points, Olivia Forsberg passed for three assists and Maddison Jones and Amelia Ryzyk tracked down five rebounds apiece.
“That was our best half of basketball form defense to offense, passing and getting out and running and hustling,” Kelly said. “I am very excited to build off of that moving forward.”
On Thursday, Dec. 19 Clare lost a home non-league game to Beal City, 41-34.
“I felt like for over three quarters, we out played them, we just couldn’t make some shots,” Kelly said. “We are going to keep working hard, keep practicing and pushing each other to get better.
You want to play those types of games, it does stink to lose but if we learn from it and get used to playing that type of basketball it will be a win for us.”
Clare faced a 15-5 deficit after the first quarter and was behind 25-19 and 33-25 after the other quarter breaks. The Pioneers had the ball and trimmed their deficit down to three points late in the game. A miss on offense led to a Beal City three pointer the other way and they were down six without enough time to stage a comeback.
Breez Yarger led the team with nine points, Kelly netted eight and Mills finished with seven.
“We are going to do a lot of shooting over Christmas break and work out some of the kinks that we have,” Kelly said.
Clare (3-2 overall, 3-1 JPC) is off until after the new year, when they travel to play Ithaca on Jan. 7. They will also host Bullock Creek on Jan. 9.
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