Hot shooting lifts Cardinals

NEW BREMEN - The way Saturday's Celina-New Bremen girls basketball began, the first team to reach 20 points was likely to win.

Then Madison Cordonnier came off the bench for the Cardinals, and the offense kicked up a notch.

Cordonnier's eight straight points put the Cardinals into the lead and a 9-0 run to start the second quarter put the game out of reach as the Cardinals picked up the 57-39 victory over the Bulldogs at the Nest to improve to 10-6 on the campaign.

It took 2 1/2 minutes before somebody could manage a made basket when Carley Eichler put Celina in front with a basket. Kaylee Freund followed with the tying bucket before Maria Lutz put Celina in front 4-2 with 4:06 remaining in the first quarter.

Cordonnier, who had come in on an earlier stoppage of play, quickly put the Cardinals in front with a 3-pointer with four minutes remaining in the quarter. That was followed by another Cordonnier trey and then a deuce with 3:12 to go to make it 10-4. After a Freund free throw, Taylor Klingshirn closed out the quarter's scoring with a 3-pointer to get Celina to within four at 11-7 at the quarter break.

"Just good for us to get out to a good start there," said New Bremen coach Chris Burden. "We just have to come out and play. We were to hit some shots."

Freund kicked off the second quarter with a trey to start a 9-0 run for New Bremen. Elli Roetgerman added two buckets during the run and Freund capped off the run with another bucket to take the lead at 20-7 before Klingshirn scored with 4:09 remaining in the half. New Bremen went up 30-12 at the half.

"They made a lot of shots," said Celina coach Branden Rushton. "It seemed like we couldn't make them on our end. Sometimes it goes that way."

The Cardinals continued to pull away through the third quarter, getting the lead to as much as 30 at 49-19 late in the third quarter. Celina was able to get some offense going in the fourth quarter as Kyilla Billingsley had eight points in the final period to get Celina's deficit under 20 at the end of the game.

"Our defense leads to our offense," said Burden, whose squad forced 17 Celina turnovers. "When we're able to do that, it's fun to sit back and watch. Credit to our girls for playing well and getting after it today."

Freund finished with 18 to lead all scorers. Roetgerman added 13 and Cordonnier scored all of her 11 points in the first half.

Billingsley led Celina with 13 points. Klingshirn added 12.

Both teams return to the court on Tuesday. New Bremen hosts Spencerville and Celina travels to Convoy to face Crestview.