| Celina raises streak
to seven in a row
By MARC TOBIAS
mtobias@dailystandard.com
Celina was able to pick up a hardfought 52-47 victory over Greenville
in Saturday afternoon girls basketball action.
The Bulldogs led by as many as 13 in the second half, but had
to hold on in the closing seconds as Greenville was within two
at 49-47.
Kelli Williams, who led all scorers with 15 points, sank a free
throw to make it a three-point margin.
After a Greenville turnover Andrea Bryan sank two free throws
of her own with less than 15 seconds to play to seal the game
for the Bulldogs.
Celina hit 12-of-22 from the free throw line, but more importantly,
7-of-11 in the final two minutes.
Celina coach Jack Clouse said he put his squad in a new offensive
set, designed to eat up some clock and hopefully draw some fouls
to get his team to the free-throw line.
“My idea was we’re one of the best foul shooting
teams around, and if we get into a foul shooting contest with
anyone then we’re going to win it,” Clouse said.
“We didn’t shoot it as well as I like to, but still
as I look at the stats it wasn’t that bad.
“We were in some real foul trouble, so that’s the
reason we got into that to see if we could take control of the
ball game that way and it was a good start for us,” Clouse
said.
If Clouse was worried about drawing some fouls he didn’t
stay that way very long, as both squads played a physical style
that saw them combine for 45 fouls and 56 free-throw attempts.
“A lot of elbows flying out there’s a lot of bodies
flying, but I thought my kids hung and kept their poise and
confidence with all the things going on out there and it was
a hard fought game,” said Greenville coach David Peltz.
Unfortunately for Peltz, the biggest fouls for his squad came
very early in the first quarter when he was forced to sit his
center Amy Starks with two fouls. Starks had to be careful the
whole game and ended with just eight points.
“I was real happy with holding Starks to eight,”
Clouse said.
Rachel Fiely led the Green Wave with 14 points, but she struggled
from the field hitting two-of-nine shots. Nine of Fiely’s
14 points came from the charity stripe.
As a team, Greenville struggled hitting 58 percent (20-of-34)
of its free throws.
The biggest swing of the game though came at the end of the
second quarter and it came from an unlikely player.
Kinsey Schumann entered the game for the first time with just
over a minute to play until halftime, and she immediately made
her presence felt by scoring on a back door cut for an easy
layup.
Schumann’s big play came just before the half though,
as she banked in a three-point shot at the buzzer to send Celina
into the break with a six-point lead.
“Anytime you can leave the floor on a positive note you’re
a lot better off, you bet it is,” Clouse said. “Something
like that gets you fired up, you’re laughing you’re
fired up and you’re feeling good about everything.”
That shot obviously carried over into the third when the Bulldogs
were able to build a 13-point lead.
“That shot that banked in kind of killed our momentum,
then we struggled from the line in the third quarter, we just
could buy any baskets or foul shots in that third quarter,”
Peltz said.
Greenville obviously battled back to get within two during the
fourth quarter, but the Green Wave were never able to get a
lead the entire game. The closest they came was when the game
was tied at 19-19.
“They have some nice players, the Williams girl, the Bryan
girl and Osterfeld had a nice first half. It was just a rough
and tumble game,” Peltz said.
Bryan and Jenna Schleucher each had eight points to help the
Celina cause, while Williams and Osterfeld helped bolster the
Bulldogs on the glass as they combined for 14 rebounds.
Rachel Birt added 10 points for Greenville.
Celina improves to 9-3 on the season while Greenville falls
to 8-3.
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