WEST FOREST 39, CLARION 23

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Feb. 10, 2009

CLARION – West Forest overcame a cold shooting night to bounce back from a heartbreaking loss to Cranberry Monday and claim the No. 2 seed in the upcoming District 9 Class A playoffs with a 39-23 win at Clarion Tuesday night.

The Lady Indians (20-2 overall, 16-2 KSAC-North) also kept its chance of playing in the KSAC Title Game Saturday alive despite shooting just 18.3 percent (13 of 71) for the game including a dismal 3 of 36 (8.3 percent) in the first half.

“A lot of it was the Cranberry game (last night),” West Forest head coach Bob Wachob said. “They were drained both physically and mentally, and we are sick. We have the flu bad. It showed there. Until the kids went through the wall and got their second wind, they weren’t hustling. Once they started doing that and got their speed back up, we were ok. We started making the buckets, getting the rebounds and things like that. And Clarion played well in the first half. They were stopping a lot of our shots.”

Clarion (10-11, 9-8), though, wasn’t able to take advantage of West Forest’s cold shooting building only a 13-5 lead while the Lady Indians were missing all but one of their first 27 shots.

Things started to turn around for West Forest late in the first half when the Lady Indians started to turn up the notch on defense scoring the final six points of the half with five of them coming off turnovers including a basket by Geena Sneeringer with 8.1 seconds left in the half that cut Clarion’s lead to 13-11.

West Forest then came out in the third quarter and outscored Clarion 20-2 in the quarter to take a 31-15 lead. Fourteen of the 20 points came off of nine Lady Cat turnovers.

“Our plan at the beginning of the game was to get them into some foul trouble because I know there are some people on their bench that can’t handle the pressure as well as the (starters),” Wachob said. “And we did that. Once we got them sat down, we put the pressure on, and it was very effective. It worked out pretty good for us.”

West Forest also used a huge rebounding advantage, albeit in part because of so many missed shots, to outrebound Clarion 55-31 including 39-8 on the offensive glass – although despite that monster edge on the offensive glass the Lady Indians only scored 10 second-chance points.

“That’s about all we talked about at halftime, was boards,” Wachob said. “I said ‘girls, it doesn’t matter how bad you’re shooting, it doesn’t matter how bad the offense looks, if you can rebound, you will get points. It will start the fast break on the one end and you’ll be able to put it back up on the other end. You have to get back on the boards.’ And we did. Amanda Carll played really, really tough and stayed in the game when she got in foul trouble. Just everybody, I’m real, real proud of these kids tonight. As proud as I’ve been all season. I think this is only the third team ever to get 20 wins (in the regular season) at West Forest. And they did it in a 22-game season. Everybody else did it in a 24-game regular-season. They have that to proud of.”

Sneeringer led all scorers with 17 points while adding 12 rebounds and six steals. Carll added 11 points, nine rebounds and three steals. Alyssa Dreihaup cleaned up the glass with 13 rebounds with Rachel Greathouse picking up nine and Erica Blum seven. Greathouse and Blum each added three steals.

Skyler Ganoe and Kelsey Beichner paced Clarion with eight points apiece with Beichner also picking up seven rebounds. Bri Nellis also had seven boards for the Lady Cats.

NOTES – The loss most likely drops Clarion to the 10^th seed in the upcoming District 9 playoffs where the Lady Cats will most likely play at North Clarion in the first round with the winner traveling to West Forest for a second-round game … West Forest and Cranberry still remain basically tied for first place in the KSAC-South after Cranberry beat Clarion-Limestone Tuesday. The Berries, who beat West Forest 48-47 Monday night after losing the Lady Indians in December, can forge a tie with a win over Venango Catholic Thursday. If they are tied after Thursday, West Forest could possibly win the tiebreaker if Clarion beats East Forest Thursday or Keystone beats Karns City. A final decision on the tiebreaker should be made by the KSAC Wednesday.

WEST FOREST 39, CLARION 23

Score by Quarters

West Forest 4 7 20 8 – 39

Clarion 6 7 2 8 – 23

West Forest – 39

Erica Blum 1 2-4 4, Rachel Greathouse 2 0-0 4, Grace Wallace 0 0-0 0, Alyssa Dreihaup 1 0-2 3, Amanda Carll 3 5-9 11, Geena Sneeringer 6 3-8 17. 13 10-23 39.

Clarion – 23

Bri Nellis 2 0-0 4, Karla Peterson 0 0-0 0, Skyler Ganoe 3 2-2 8, Kelly Peterson 0 0-0 0, Kelsey Beichner 4 0-0 8, Kara Durkin 0 0-0 0, Tiff Smathers 1 0-0 2, Liz Shannonhouse 0 1-2 1. Totals 10 3-4 23.

Three-pointers – West Forest 3 (Sneeringer 2, Dreihaup)