Sunday, January 31, 1999

H-L too hot to handle for Cats

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

BASCOM &emdash; Saturday night against Sylvania Northview, the Hopewell-Loudon girls were outrebounded 36-19 and outscored 34-19 over the final 13 minutes.

And they still won by 20.

A big, physical Northview team was no match for a faster, quicker Hopewell-Loudon team, and the Chieftains walked away with an easy 72-52 non-league victory.

''Overall, I thought we dominated the game,'' Hopewell-Loudon coach Doug Reynolds said. ''There were spots where we played better than others, but we've been off for nine days so I thought the kids came back and played very well.

''We got good performances out of all of our starters, and I thought Kara Johnson came off the bench and played very well.''

The one spot that was better than all the others came at the start of the third quarter.

The Chieftains (12-1, ranked No. 3 in Division IV) had a relatively easy go of it in the first half, opening up leads of 14-2, 27-8 and then 39-16 at halftime, but H-L blew the game open in the third.

Carrie Norris assisted a Susie Norris bucket in the opening seconds and Kate Gase's steal-and-bucket just 22 seconds later gave the Chieftains a 43-16 advantage.

Northview's Julie Vinciguerra scored at the other end, but Hopewell-Loudon rattled off the next 10 points to open a 53-18 lead. Gase, the Norrises and DiDi Reynolds (21 points, six rebounds) all scored during the run.

''It took us a little bit of time to adjust to what was going on (with Hopewell-Loudon's pressure),'' said Northview coach Gerald Sigler, whose team fell to 9-4. ''We were afraid they'd make a big run, and that's what they did. They got us right out of the blocks.''

Gase finished with 12 points and Johnson contributed 11. Lindsay Borer was next with 10, and Susie Norris had nine.

Megan Baier hit 14 field goals for Northview and led all scorers with 29 points.¥kׯ _ Hopewell-Loudon overcame its rebounding deficit by hitting 56 percent (28-of-50) from the field and turning the ball over just eight times.

''The one reason we wanted to play (Northview) was because we knew they would be physical,'' coach Reynolds said. ''And we need that to get ready for the tournament; it's a different style of basketball. They have some big girls and I think you can tell that we have to work on our boxing out.

''I thought the first half was a real good half for us. Baier started to do some things in the second half, but I thought Carrie Norris did an excellent job on her (in the first half). That's where the game was won.''