CLARION 45, EAST FOREST 35

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Dec. 14, 2007

By Chris Rossetti

CLARION – Chrissy Kriebel scored 17 points to lead Clarion to a 45-35 win over visiting East Forest Friday night in KSAC girls’ basketball action.

“That’s huge win for us coming off the win (44-42, OT) at Union Monday night,” Clarion head coach Roger Walter said. “This game got us back to .500, and we are just looking to build off it.”

Kriebel scored 11 of her points in the second half including the final five for Bobcats after East Forest had cut a 20-point second-half deficit to nine with less than three minutes to play.

“We expect that from her,” Walter said. “I expect her to make some moves and hit some jump shots. She had a couple of easy layups there.”

Clarion had built the 20-point lead thanks to a 25-2 run that stretched from midway through the second quarter through midway through the third quarter and erased a 14-11 East Forest lead.

“We started to move the ball a little faster,” Walter said. “We started to push the ball down the floor a little harder and got some easy looks. We then fed off the momentum.”

Poor shooting, turnovers and foul trouble did East Forest in.

The Lady Bears (3-3, 2-2) shot 26 percent (13 of 50) for the game including 4 of 27 (14.8 percent) in the middle two quarters. East Forest also turned the ball over 20 times.

“You aren’t going to win many basketball games when you shoot like we did,” East Forest head coach Dave Kiehl said. “And when you add that to the number of turnovers we had, you aren’t going to win very many either. That hurt us. It just wasn’t a good night for us.”

Fouls also hurt East Forest. The Lady Bears were whistled for 25 fouls to Clarion’s 12 allowing Clarion hold a 27-9 free-throw advantage. That advantage was actually 19-1 in favor of Clarion midway through the fourth quarter.

“We didn’t take it to the hoop enough in the early quarters and they did,” Kiehl said. “Give them credit, that’s for sure.”

Clarion’s defense, especially Erin Bean, also did a good job of shutting down East Forest’s 1,000-point scorer Alicia Ponegalek holding the senior to 13 points on the night including three in the first three quarters and none in the first half.

“Erin worked her hard man-to-man,” Walter said. “We didn’t want her to bring the ball up court, so we worked her full court. We know how dangerous she is.”

NOTES – Bean chipped in with 11 points for Clarion, while Stacie Kandray had 10 for East Forest … Clarion won the rebounding edge 48-47 including 25-19 on the offensive boards. Shaina McNeil led the Lady Cats with 14 boards, while Emily Fillman had 10. Nicole Geyer led everyone with 15 boards for East Forest, while Oliver had 11 … There was no junior varsity game because East Forest only had nine players dress. It appears the Lady Bears won’t play JV games next week as well.  

CLARION 45, EAST FOREST 35

Score by Quarters

East Forest 11 5 5 14 – 35

Clarion 9 15 14 7 – 45

East Forest – 35

Jena Cotterman 0 0-0 0, Alicia Ponegalek 4 3-4 13, Stacie Kandray 4 2-4 10, Danielle Kirkwood 0 0-0 0, Nicole Geyer 2 0-0 4, Ashley Oliver 2 0-0 5, Kassie Wagner 0 0-0 0, Kelsey Rini 1 1-1 3. Totals 13 6-9 35.

Clarion – 45

Chrissy Kriebel 7 3-9 17, Skyler Ganoe 0 0-0 0, Kaitlin Roth 1 0-0 2, Kelsey Beichner 0 0-0 0, Marie Rhoads 2 1-1 5, Tiff Smathers 0 0-0 0, Karyn Larson 1 0-0 2, Shaina McNeil 1 1-7 3, Emily Fillman 1 3-4 5, Erin Bean 3 3-6 11. Totals 16 11-27 45.

Three-pointers – East Forest 3 (Ponegalek 2, Oliver). Clarion 2 (Bean 2).