Second half lifts Bath past Celina

CELINA - Celina gave Bath all it could handle in the first half of Thursday's WBL girls basketball game, with the Bulldogs holding a three-point lead on the unbeaten Wildkittens.

Bath found its shooting touch in the second half and pulled away from a determined Celina bunch to pick up the 58-42 win at the Fieldhouse.

The Wildcats run their consecutive league win streak to 35 games in moving to 6-0 and 2-0 in the league. The Bulldogs fall to 2-5 and 1-1 in the WBL.

Bath started the game like it was going to pull away, taking a 13-4 lead with two minutes left in the first quarter. Celina responded as Caelyn Reineke hit a three-pointer and Haley McGillvary and Jenna Berry had two-pointers to cut it to 13-11 after one quarter.

Kelly Stahl tied the game at 18-18 with 3:26 left in the second quarter and after another tie at 21-all, hit a free throw with 1:48 to go to give the Bulldogs their first lead at 22-21. Stahl capped off the first half with another bucket to give Celina 24-21 lead at the half.

"We were preaching that we had to stay calm and had to execute," Celina coach Toma Hainline said. "We did a good job in the first half. Things went our way. (Bath) missed some shots, we rebounded and we took care of the ball."

"Celina deserves all the credit. They played really well in the first half," Bath coach Greg Mauk said. "They took away things we wanted to do and made us play a little different in the second half. That credit goes to their coaching staff. They had them well prepared."

Bath, which had shot just 7-of-26 from the floor in the first half, caught fire in the second half. Alyssa Manley and Bri Smith, held to a combined five points in the first two quarters, found their touch, teaming up to score the first 10 points for the Wildkittens in the first 2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter to put Bath up 31-27. Celina cut it to three on another McGillvary bucket, but Maddie Dackin and Smith hit three-pointers to make it 40-31 and Manley's triple with 44 seconds left in the quarter gave Bath its first double-digit margin.

Celina came out of the zone defense to run man-to-man to try and put more pressure on Bath, but the Wildkittens were able to avoid the traps and maintained a double-digit lead for most of the fourth quarter.

"Alyssa, in particular, and Bri came out in the second half and had focus on what to do," said Mauk, whose team was 13-of-21 from the floor in the second half. "I thought our seniors stepped it up in the second half."

Despite the loss, Hainline was proud of the effort her team showed.

"We'd like to stay in zone, but there was not much we could do," Hainline said. "We did the best we could at the end. I thought we had a good team effort tonight. Everybody looked for each other. That and the low turnovers (12) was what I was most proud of. We relied on each other."

Dackin finished with 19 to lead Bath. Smith and Manley each finished with 14.

Heather Heiby led Celina with 11 points. Stahl had all eight of her points in the first half. Reineke came off the bench to score seven.

Celina wraps up 2014 on Monday, hosting St. Henry in a battle of Mercer County teams.