WEST FOREST 55, CRANBERRY 43

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Feb. 13, 2009 - KSAC North Title Game

By Chris Rossetti

CLARION – West Forest used a pair of second half runs to beat Cranberry 55-43 and win the KSAC-North girls’ title in a playoff game Friday night at Clarion High School.

The Lady Indians (21-2) will now face Moniteau in the KSAC Title Game at 3 p.m. Saturday at Clarion High School.

“This is a great situation,” West Forest head coach Bob Wachob said. “We are looking upon it as a chance to win a game, win a championship. When else do you get that chance? It gets us ready for the playoffs. It’s a perfect setup for us.”

The game was necessitated after West Forest and Cranberry (18-4) split their two regular-season meetings – each team won on the other’s home court including a 48-47 Cranberry win at West Forest Monday and a three-point Lady Indians win at Cranberry just before Christmas – and the five KSAC tiebreaking rules still left them tied.   

This game was nearly as good as the first two, as West Forest needed to use runs of 13-4 in the third quarter and 15-4 in the fourth quarter to pull out the win against a team that had given them problems for most of Wachob’s 30 years at the school.

“Years ago, they were our Achilles heel,” Wachob said. “But in the last three years, we’ve got the best of them as much as they’ve got the best of us. It has become a really good rivalry the last three years after mostly being one-sided before that.”

West Forest led 22-21 early in the third quarter when Geena Sneeringer, who scored a game-high 27 points to go with eight rebounds and five steals, helped create a 7-2 spurt that started the 13-4 run. She scored back-to-back baskets, and then after Cranberry’s Hannah Heeter and West Forest’s Alyssa Dreihaup exchanged hoops, completed an old-school 3-point play giving West Forest its biggest lead of the game at that point at 31-23 with 4:29 left in the quarter.

“Geena was a great player tonight,” Wachob said. “Really, a lot of players contributed in the second half. We executed well, we took care of the ball and we boxed out and rebounded well.”

After Heeter hit two more free throws to close the gap to six, back-to-back baskets by Amanda Carll got the lead up to 10, 35-25, and the Lady Indians then went up 12, 39-27, on a 3-pointer from Sneeringer with 1:15 left in the quarter.

Cranberry was able to cut the lead to 39-29 at the end of the quarter on a Heeter basket, and then the Berries got back-to-back hoops from Chyanne Shuffstall and Heeter to start the fourth quarter cutting West Forest’s lead to 39-33 with 6:16 to play.

But following a West Forest timeout, the Lady Indians answered with the 15-4 run that put the game away. Most of the scoring came from the free-throw line, where West Forest hit 10 of 15 shots in the closing 5:34 including 9 of 13 during the run.

“We didn’t get the job done,” Cranberry head coach Chrissy Shumaker said. “Our foul trouble didn’t help us. The fouls were 15-5 in the second half.”

The game was tight in the first half, although West Forest led for most of the half.

After falling behind 2-0 early, the Lady Indians used a 7-0 run to help take a 13-9 lead at the end of the first quarter and then used a 6-3 lead at the end of the half after Cranberry had tied the score at 16 to go in at halftime with a 22-19 lead.

“We got back to driving (to the basket) and got them in deep foul trouble,” Wachob said. “That helped us.”

The Lady Indians also got a spark in the first half from sophomore Hillary Clark, who came in when Rachel Greathouse and Carll both got into foul trouble in the half to score three points and grab four rebounds in the second quarter.

“It’s huge to have someone like that help us out,” Wachob said. “She has been coming on the last month of the season. She stood tall for us tonight.

“And so did a lot of other players. Rachel Greathouse came alive the second half, Alyssa Dreihaup rebounded and played defense and Erica Blum handled their pressure all night long.”

Shumaker didn’t take much solace in the fact that losing the KSAC-North season didn’t end Cranberry’s season. The Berries are the top seeded in the District 9 Class AA playoffs that start Feb. 24.

“The bottom line is we don’t like to lose at all,” Shumaker said. “But one of the good characteristics about this team is that we have been able to bounce back from our losses this year. I think we will be a very tough team in the playoffs.”  

Heeter led Cranberry with 16 points and 13 rebounds, while Shuffstall added nine points and seven boards and Maggie O’Neil seven points.

Dreihaup added 11 points and five rebounds for West Forest.

NOTES – The division crown is the first conference/division title for West Forest since they won back-to-back T.C.A.C Class A titles in 1991 and 1992. The Lady Indians also won the T.C.A.C. title in 1988 … West Forest has now played back-to-back games at Clarion High School after playing the Lady Cats in the regular-season finale Tuesday. Saturday’s game will mark the third straight game at Clarion High for the Lady Indians  

WEST FOREST 55, CRANBERRY 43

Score by Quarters

West Forest 13 9 17 16 – 55

Cranberry 9 10 19 14 – 43

West Forest – 55

Geena Sneeringer 8 9-14 27, Amanda Carll 2 0-0 4, Erica Blum 2 2-5 6, Alyssa Dreihaup 3 5-8 11, Rachel Greathouse 1 0-0 2, Grace Wallace 1 1-2 3, Hilary Clark 1 1-2 3. Totals 17 19-33 55.

Cranberry – 43

Hannah Heeter 5 6-7 16, Sarah Lutz 2 0-0 5, Laura Heineman 0 0-0 0, Chyanne Shuffstall 3 3-4 9, Maggie O’Neil 1 5-8 7, Lindsay Burneisen 1 0-0 3, Kirsten Neidich 1 0-0 3, Kylie Mason 0 0-0 0, Lauren Hogue 0 0-0 0, Alyssa Craft 0 0-0 0. Totals 13 14-19 43.

Three-pointers – West Forest 2 (Sneeringer 2). Cranberry 3 (Lutz, Burneisen, Neidich).