January 27, 1999

Calvert girls taking competition by storm

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

LAKESIDE -- Twelve days ago the Calvert basketball team embarked on what could best be described as a barnstorming tour.

A stretch of eight games in 16 days included a lightning-quick, five games in eight days.

The Senecas, well, barnstormed right through the first five, and Tuesday night they made it six in a row by overcoming a 10-point deficit and wiping away Danbury, 83-67.

In the last 12 days Calvert has gone from a 3-1 team just trying to get started, to a 9-1 team that's on a serious roll.

''Really were just trying to take it one game at a time,'' said Calvert coach Tony Mass, whose team remains a mysterious no-show in the Associated Press poll. ''When you have a season like this, when all the game's are crammed together, I think it's really important that you really concentrate on the task at hand, and these guys are doing that.

''We really need to get into the gym and get some things done because we haven't had much practice time during this stretch.''

So against the Lakers' the Senecas had to do all of their adjusting on the fly.

Danbury (4-7) got started quickly and opened up leads of 17-7 and 25-18 just into the second quarter. But, Calvert slowly chisled at the deficit, eventually caught the Lakers, and then pulled away.

Chris Shank and Joe Harvey (game high 21 points) both banged in 3-pointers during a 10-2 run that gave the Senecas a 28-27 advantage with 2:25 left in the first half.

After that the game was tied eight times until the Senecas began to take control late in the third.

It was 48-48 with two minutes left when Dan Walter (15 points) scored off an inbound play to trigger a 10-0 run. Joe Harvey also scored during the run, but it was Dustyn Risner who provided most of the fuel.

Risner (15 points) hit a pair of open jumpers in the final minute of the quarter to put Calvert up, 56-48. He followed that with two more in the opening minutes of the fourth that allowed Calvert to open up a 64-52 lead with five minutes left.

Danbury went scoreless from the 5:44 mark of the fourth to the 2:29 mark. By that time the Calvert lead had swelled to 17 (69-52).

''What happened was that we simply ran into a talented team,'' Danbury coach Brian Vorst said. ''We pride ourselves on our defense, and over the last three weeks we had only been giving up about 45 points a game. They just beat us with their talent. And when a team whose focuse is defense all of the sudden needs to come up with a bucket, then you're in trouble.''

Eric Welty had eight steals and five assists, and gave the Senecas four double figure scorers with 10 points. Joe Walter scored just two points, but led the team with nine boards.

Danbury also had four score in double figures, led by Joe Uhinck's 14. Adam Dress pichted in 13, Jim Lenner 12 and Ben Gdovicak 11.

''I think (Danbury's) a very penetration-oriented team,'' Mass said. ''And I think during that stand we did not give up much penetration. We made them shoot it from the outside. And on defense we got the rebound and then fed it to our offense going the other way.

''We also started executing some things on offense,'' he said. ''We started rebounding and getting going on the breaks. I thought Dustyn really led us. Joey (Harvey) had 21, but Dustyn really hit some big shots. He led ustonight.''