Sunday, November 28, 1999

Clyde's pressure puts brakes on Fostoria in opener

By Ed Fox
Sports Writer

FOSTORIA &emdash; Clyde used its pressure defense to keep Fostoria off balance in Saturday's season opener.

Forcing the Redmen into 39 turnovers, Clyde was able to come away with a 58-39 win.

It was Fostoria taking the lead in the early going and the Redmen had an 8-6 lead at the first quarter break.

The Redmen were still in front (13-10) after five straight points by senior Kristen Davis-Clark who finished as the game's leading scorer with 18 points.

It was the Fliers coming right back with an 11-0 run over the next four minutes spearheaded by four points apiece from freshman Heather Kwiatkowski and senior Andrea Wilson.

Although the Redmen narrowed the deficit to six points on two occasions at 21-15 and 23-17, but Clyde went on to take a 27-18 lead at the half.

"We played hard," said Clyde head coach John Cahill. "We didn't shoot well (21-of-65). In the first quarter we were a little tight and played scared. After the first quarter I thought we played pretty good basketball."

Junior Rachel Crooks led the Fliers with 13 points and was also the leading rebounder with seven while Kwiatkowski followed with 11 points, senior Marissa Greenslade had nine and Wilson netted eight.

"Kwiatkowski is going to be a big part of what we do this year," said Cahill. "We have two all-league (Sandusky Bay Conference) players back in Crooks and (Sarah) Musser and they combined for only four points in the first half.

"This is my third year as head coach and in all three years we try to play hard, get out and go and that's the way we're going to play. We wanted to run and press. We didn't run as well as I liked and didn't fill the lanes well. I think we were able to wear them down."

Turnovers continued to plague Fostoria at the start of the second half and the Fliers benefited from 11 Redmen miscues in the third quarter for a 12-8 advantage and were comfortably in front by a 39-26 score heading into the final canto.

In the middle two quarters, the Redmen had 22 turnovers.

"We were definitely frustrated," said Fostoria head coach Jose Hernandez. "We missed a lot of scoring opportunities early. Once we got down we just weren't able to recover. We never got patient enough to run the things we needed to run. It was open and we were getting shots inside but just weren't making them. We missed five (layups) in the first quarter and were 4-of-14 in the first quarter. I don't remember too many long shots in that quarter and most of them were from point blank."

The Redmen hit just 16-of-48 from the floor and that included a 7-of-28 showing in the first half.

"If we had been able to make a few of those missed layups, we would've gained confidence. I thought their pressure took us out of things. But if you're not converting that makes their pressure even more effective because they know you're not going to beat them deep.

"We've got a lot of young players and they are just not use to each other yet. We've been having a lot of trouble scoring and it's no secret that (Lyndsey) Robinson is not there anymore (now playing at Bluffton College). Unless someone else steps up and scores it's going to be hard and I don't think we're in condition yet.

"I thought we played good defense for about 12 minutes of the first half and we've got a lot of things to work on."

Freshman Melissa Latham helped the Redmen to a 40-37 edge on the boards with nine caroms while Lisa Kline had seven and the trio of Sandy Frisch, Michelle Lykins and Davis-Clark each had six.

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