May

Hornets Nest

Hornets Battle to End of Season

By mason cole sPorts@karlovecmedia.com

The Kirtland Hornets girls’ basketball team started their postseason strong with a 42-33 victory over the Pymatuning Valley Lakers Feb. 19 before eventually falling to Warren-Champion in the girls basketball state tournament.

In the final home game for seniors Macy McIntosh, Amalie Gettig, Alex Rosson and Reilly Greenlee, the Hornets got off to a slow start in the first quarter.

Luckily for Kirtland, so did the Lakers, as both teams only managed to score five points through the first quarter. Hornets Head Coach Brittany Zele believes that the gridlocked first quarter was a good example of postseason basketball.

“Because it’s tournament time both teams are playing really good defense,” Zele said. “We had the shots we just weren’t making them.”

After shaking off their early-game jitters, the Hornets began to see more offensive production in the second quarter. McIntosh opened the quarter with a layup making the score 7-5, Kirtland’s first lead of the game. Reilly Greenlee had a pair of layups and some strong plays on defense as the Hornets went into halftime with a 15-12 lead.

Kirtland was not happy with their performance in the first half. While their defense did a good job of stopping Pymatuning Valley, Greenlee said that the Hornets struggled to find scoring opportunities.

“There was a lot going on in (the paint),” Greenlee said. “We weren’t hitting our threes, we like driving and kicking and the driving was hard because it was all clogged.”

Kirtland began the second half determined to break out of their offensive slump. On the Hornets first two offensive possessions of the third quarter, Rosson and Greenlee each hit three-point shots which quickly extended the Hornets lead to 21-12, forcing the Lakers to take a timeout and regroup.

After finally breaking their shooting slump, Kirtland unleashed a scoring onslaught in the game’s third period. The Hornets were moving the ball well and saw scoring contributions from every player they put on the floor. Kirtland juniors Corinne Greenlee and Marissa Carmosino also had some key defensive plays as the Hornets finished the third quarter with a strong 32-22 lead.

After a slow first half, Zele believed that Rosson’s first 3-point basket helped her team gain confidence in their offense.

“As soon as one person makes a shot it’s the trickle-down effect,” Zele said. “It was nice to see that everyone shared the burden of scoring in the third quarter.”

In the fourth quarter, Kirtland got a boost from freshman Emily Ridgeway whose backto-back three-point shots at the beginning of the period helped her team to continue pulling away from the Lakers.

But what ultimately led to the Hornets victory over Pymatuning Valley was their tough defense. Kirtland prides itself on its defense. The Hornets ran a full-court press for the majority of the game and frequently trapped Pymatuning Valley players on the sidelines to force turnovers. When looking for the reason that Kirtland defeated the Lakers, Reilly Greenlee says to look toward their defense.

“We’ve always been a mostly defensive team,” Greenlee said. “We’re not the biggest, we can’t always be the best scorers, but we’re fast and we’re defensive and we don’t want the other team to score, we work hard on that.”

DAVE TURBEN/KMG Kirtland defeated Pymatuning Valley 42-33. Kirtland’s Marissa Carmasino (23) steals the ball from Pymatuning’s Alaina Neczeporenko (13) with help from Macy McIntosh (30).