WEST FOREST 42, CLARION 35

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Feb. 25, 2010 - District 9 Class A Girls' Quarterfinals

By Chris Rossetti

TIONESTA – Geena Sneeringer scored five of her nine points in the fourth quarter to help West Forest hold off a Clarion rally and get a 42-35 win over the Lady Cats in the District 9 Class A girls’ basketball quarterfinals Thursday night at West Forest.

Sneeringer, who was kept in check most of the night by a triangle-and-two defense employed by Clarion (14-10), was able to get going after the Lady Cats had closed to within a point in the fourth quarter.

“They did a nice job of closing her off most of the game,” West Forest head coach Bob Wachob said. “But it left other girls open, and we were able to get scoring from them.”

One of the players who took advantage of being open was Amanda Carll who finished with a game-high 12 points to go with 14 rebounds.

“When they played the triangle-and-two, it gave Carll the high post,” Wachob said. “She was driving to the hoop like crazy. She played a real nice game. She was tough.”

West Forest (21-3), which beat Clarion 57-38 seven days ago, looked like it was going to run away with this one again jumping to a 9-1 lead at the end of the first quarter thanks in part to a Lady Cat stall.

But Clarion got its footing in the second quarter outscoring West Forest 18-11 to close within a point, 20-19, at halftime. The Lady Indians extended that lead to six, 33-27, at the end of three quarters before it stayed tight throughout the fourth.

“I expected it to be a tighter game,” Wachob said. “They got into some foul trouble last week, but it was a tighter game at their place (41-34 WF win Jan. 27).”

West Forest could have pulled away if it had connected on some free throws, but the Lady Indians were just 10 of 24 from the line compared to Clarion’s 8 of 16.

“If we had averaged our normal 60 percent from the line, it won’t have been that close,” Wachob said. “I don’t know what was going on, but we couldn’t hit foul shots at all.”  

While Sneeringer struggled to score points, she did help West Forest in other ways getting nine steals on defense while adding five assists on offense. She also held Clarion’s Skyler Ganoe, who had scored 18 points in the Lady Cats playoff win over DuBois Central Catholic Tuesday, to just a single point.

“Geena was on Skyler and shut her down,” Wachob said. “She found other ways to help us tonight.”

The win clinches a third straight PIAA playoff berth for West Forest, which hadn’t been to the PIAA playoffs since 1982 when the run started. It was also the 87^th win for the senior class, a school record.

“When you have a school our size that can consistently do this, not many program have three 20-win seasons,” Wachob said. “Eighty-seven wins is a lot of wins for a team. They have won 10 playoff games in their career.”

Wachob also said the support of Tionesta and the surrounding communities played a role in the victory Thursday night.

“We had a very big crowd tonight, they helped pull us back when Clarion made its run,” Wachob said. “The whole town has signs all over for us. It’s nice to have a little community get behind us like they have. It makes the girls feel good.”  

Bri Nellis led Clarion with 11 points, while Kaitlin Roth, Kelsey Beichner and Kelly Peterson each added six.

“Clarion played hard tonight,” Wachob said. “I knew it was going to be like this. They are a decent team. They have size and speed.”

West Forest now awaits the winner of the Clarion-Limestone at Coudersport game in the semifinals. That game was originally scheduled for Thursday night but was postponed because of the weather. It is now set for 3 p.m. Saturday. Last year, Coudersport beat West Forest in the semifinals after knocking off the Lady Indians in the District 9 title game in 2008.

NOTES – The victory assures Wachob of at least three more games as a head coach. The 31st year head coach is retiring following the season. He has a career record of 481-232.

WEST FOREST 42, CLARION 35

Score by Quarter

Clarion 1 18 8 8 -  35

West 9 11 13 9 – 42

Clarion – 35

Skyler Ganoe 0 1-2 1, Kaitlin Roth 2 1-2 6, Kelsey Beichner 3 0-1 6, Bri Nellis 4 3-4 11, Kelly Peterson 3 0-2 6, Kara Durkin 0 0-0 0, Hannah Wolf 0 0-0 0, Ashley Hummell 0 0-0 0, Kate Fillman 1 3-5 5. Totals 13 8-16 35.

West Forest – 42

Geena Sneering 3 3-7 9, Amanda Carll 5 2-5 12, Alyssa Dreihaup 2 0-0 5, Grace Wallace 3 5-11 11, Rachel Greathouse 0 0-1 0, Hilary Clark 1 0-0 2, Larissa Schwab 1 0-0 3. Totals 15 10-24 42.

Three-pointers – Clarion 1 (Roth). West Forest 2 (Dreihaup, Schwab).