January 29, 1999

Carey girls repeatedly improve

By Pat Magers
Sports Writer

CAREY -- If improvement lies in repetition, the Carey girls basketball team are an excellent example.

The Blue Devils nearly doubled up on New Riegel in rebounding and turned 19 offensive boards into 14 second-chance points on the way to a come-from-behind 64-55 victory Thursday night.

Carey improved to 8-5 while dropping the Blue Jackets to 7-5. Both teams stand 4-2 in the Midland Athletic League, trailing league unbeatens Hopewell-Loudon and Calvert by two games.

The Blue Devils pulled down 43 rebounds while limiting New Riegel to 22. The second-half margin was key -- Carey owned a 26-11 advantage.

''Nineteen offensive boards, that's a season high for us this year,'' Carey coach Tom Lee said. ''The previous best was 16 against Mohawk, who is a big, physical team. So obviously, we're starting to get after the boards.

''We put two things on the board before the game,'' he said. ''We wanted to stop penetration by Renee (Lafontaine, MAL's second-leading scorer), which we didn't do in the first half. The other thing is we wanted to stop them on the offensive boards and get to our own. We felt we could have an advantage there.''

Such numbers meant very little in the early going. Lafontaine, who was averaging nearly 26 points per game, scored six and Jenny Gibson added five in helping the Blue Jackets to leads of 12-4 and 17-8.

Holly Brodman hit three 3-pointers and sub Molly Zender added another in leading a Carey rally that produced a 27-25 lead midway through the second period.

Lafontaine then answered with a 3-pointer and a jumper in the lane to start an 11-2 cruise to a 36-29 halftime lead.

New Riegel was scoreless for the first three minutes of the second half as Carey began trimming the lead. A basket by Tricia Putnam and a pair of foul shots by Ashley Schade cut the margin to three.

It was still three points with a 1:08 to go in the quarter before a Brodman putback and two free throws by Steph Orians gave Carey a brief lead. A Lafontaine foul shot tied it for the stretch run.

Leanne Wertz took a pass from Amber Beckley for an inside hoop to give New Riegel its final lead. Orians drove the lane for a tying basket. Then sub Connie Cole (seven rebounds) hit a board shot and Zender added a three-point play for a 53-48 Carey lead. New Riegel could get no closer than three points from there.

''There two areas in the second half that were keys,'' New Riegel coach Steve Lucius said. ''All of a sudden, our shots were dropping. We couldn't buy a basket. We had a lot of good looks, but we couldn't get the shots to go down.

''The other thing was the rebounding,'' he said. ''When Dawn (Faeth, foul trouble) does out, we have problems. She's our tallest kid at 5-8. We just don't have a lot of size. Our young kids do the best they can, but it's tough.

''There was a key possession at the end of the third quarter, when think (Carey) must have gotten 10 or 12 shots. That seemed to set the tone.''

Lafontaine led New Riegel with 17 points, but was limited to four in the second half. Sophomore Janelle Reed came off the bench to knock down 16 points and Sara Nye checked in with seven points and eight rebounds.

''I'm real happy with the way we played Renee in the second half. She's a player,'' Lee said. ''If you can control their outside game and then make sure you take care of the boards, that's a big part of it.''

Brodman topped the Blue Devils in scoring with 19 and rebounds with 11, including five at the offensive end. Zender, who had a pair of treys, added 13 points, Brooke Orians had eight points and six boards and three others chipped in six points each.