Thursday, December 24, 1998

New Riegel won't let Eagles soar twice

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

FINDLAY - Second verse, different from the first.

For the second time this year, New Riegel and Liberty-Benton's girls basketball teams hooked up on a basketball court.

And thanks to some better foul shooting and a streetwise move by coach Steve Lucius, the Blue Jackets avenged a season-opening overtime loss to the Eagles with a 58-50 victory in the consolation of the Liberty-Benton Holiday Classic.

In the season-opener L-B's Jana Butler burned the Jackets for 36 points in a 73-66 Eagle win. But thanks to a nifty defensive maneuver, New Riegel held Butler to just eight points in the second half.

According to Lucius the approach was the football equivilant of drawing up a play in the dirt.

''We went to a diamond-and-one on Butler and that worked out pretty well,'' Lucius said. ''We've never even worked on it in practice; it's just something we kind of put together in the locker room.

''We put Dawn Faeth and sometimes Sara Nye on her, and they both finished with four fouls,'' he said. ''So they both were aggressive.''

It was just the medicine the Jackets needed.

Butler, who was joined on the all-tournament team by New Riegel's Renee Lafontaine, Calvert's Lisa Kuhn and Van Buren's Lindy Hatfield and Courtney Fennell, hit her first five shots from the field and scored 11 points in the first quarter.

At that point, the Eagles had a 17-12 advantage, but improved defense in the post and the emergence of Renee Lafontaine would put the Blue Jackets (4-4) up for good in the second.

New Riegel had a 22-21 edge with three minutes gone in the second when Lafontaine hit a jumper, a 3-pointer from the top of the key, three foul shots and a baseline jumper over the next two minutes.

That flurry of points came unanswered and New Riegel had a 32-21 cushion with three minutes left in the half. Liberty-Benton recovered to make it 36-26 at the half, but never made a serious push until late in the fourth quarter.

New Riegel had a 53-46 lead with 1:30 remaining when Butler hit a turnaround jumper to trim it down to 53-48. Lafontaine and Butler then traded foul shots to make it 55-50, but L-B got no closer.

New Riegel's 5-of-7 shooting at the foul line down the stretch was good enough to seal it.

''They always seem to get us in the second game,'' Liberty-Benton coach Dennis Rissler said. ''I think this is four years in a row that we've beaten them the first time and they've come back to beat us in the second game.

'''They've obviously improved their foul shooting (from 23-of-46 in the first game),'' he said. ''They hit them down the stretch and that was a big difference from the first game.''

Lafontaine finished with 28 points (52 for the tourney) while Leanne Wertz finished with six. Sabrina Reinhart and Faeth both had six points.

Kathleen Radabaugh backed Butler with 16 points.

''It feels good to finally beat a good team,'' Lucius said. ''This was a lot like the last one in that we had a lead late and they made a run at us. Only this time we hit our foul shots down the stretch. That was the difference.''