February 23,2000

Danbury advance to sectional finals

By Ed Fox
Sports Writer

OLD FORT -- Jim Kuhn has watched his team go through spurts, both good and bad.

Unfortunately the Senecas got caught at the end Tuesday night as Danbury put together a late spurt to edge Calvert, 51-47, and advance to the Division IV Sectional finals at Old Fort where they will take on top seed Hopewell-Loudon (18-2) at approximately 8:15 p.m. Saturday. The winner will advance to the Fostoria District next week.

The Lakers have clashed with Hopewell-Loudon four times in the sectional finals over the last six years and have come away on the short end each time.

With 5:29 remaining in the third quarter Danbury enjoyed a 17-point lead (37-20) and appeared headed for a blowout.

Calvert, which finished 12-9, had other ideas as it scored the next 11 points in succession and got within four (39-35) as the third quarter ended.

The Senecas were able to overtake Danbury (42-40) on a trey by Hillary Hepp with 6:46 to go in the game. It was the first Calvert lead since 12-11 at the 1:01 mark of the first period.

Just over a minute later (5:40) Sabrina Seitz hit a layup as the Senecas pushed their lead to 44-40.

After a time out Danbury coach Joe Fetzer went to the franchise (Connie Longer) and she responded with a pair of free throws at the 4:43 mark and got the Lakers even at 44-44 with a drive to the bucket with 4:22 remaining.

After a series of turnovers the Lakers (16-5 and co-champs in the Toledo Area Athletic Conference) took a 46-44 lead on a pair of free throws by Ashley Dress.

Seitz, who had five of her 11 points in the fourth quarter, hit 1-of-2 free throws. Then a steal by Laura Kuhn and feed to Seitz for a layup gave the Senecas their final lead of the game at 47-46 with 1:35 left in the contest.

Danbury got even at 47-all after Stevie Rinaldo hit one of two free throws with 50.3 seconds remaining and the Lakers went on to hit 4-of-6 from the line the rest of the way in pulling away for the win.

"We shoot over 60 percent from the line," said Fetzer. "Our five starters all shoot between 60 and 70 percent and we feel pretty comfortable going to the line in crucial situations."

Longer, who was plagued with foul trouble the first half, led the Lakers with 22 points including 10 in the third quarter while Dress followed with 18 and she had 12 before intermission.

"Two halves of basketball," said Kuhn. "The first half we didn't show up and I don't know where our heads were and we didn't play with a lot of confidence and didn't play well defensively.

"Just trying to find the right five players on the floor was like a revolving door. Turnovers and spurts have been the story all year and it was the same tonight. We've been consistent. Have we went to the next level, I sure hope so. I think we made Danbury play its best game of the year.

"The kids showed they know they can do it when they came from 17 points down to being up by four. It's just getting 32 minutes of basketball from them. Andrea Weber and Sabrina Seitz were two girls who had no varsity experience at the beginning of the year and we asked them to run the show."

Kristen Kastner led the Senecas with 12 points including nine in the third quarter when they battled back to get in the game. Seitz and Hillary Hepp each had 11.

The Senecas were only down by one (13-12) at the end of the first quarter and trailed by seven (23-16) at halftime.

But Danbury went on a 14-4 run to start the second half with Longer accounting for 10 of the points before she picked up her fourth personal foul with 5:08 to go in the third quarter.