North opened the final week of the regular season by avenging an early season loss to rival South, 38-30.
The Rebels downed the Rangers on their home court back on Feb. 3, 38-35, but the Rangers thwarted any chance for their rivals to create a rare winning streak.
“We talk a lot about rivalry games, and there’s not a lot of districts in Ohio that have two high schools, and we don’t take that lightly,” said North coach Paul Force. “We certainly value the opportunity to compete against a crosstown rival like that, win or lose. It’s an exciting atmosphere for the kids, and I’m just happy for our seniors. We’ve got five girls that won’t be here next year and they were able to go out with their last game against South being a win.”
North salvaged a season split with South, but the rivalry remains one-sided.
The Rangers have lost just two games to the Rebels since the 2010-2011 season.
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“We knew last time when we played them it wasn’t our best performance, so we all wanted to come out and prove that we could beat them,” said North senior Sam Cantrell. “For us seniors, it was nice to go out with a rivalry win.”
Cantrell sparked the win with her 19-point night that included five 3-pointers.
“Watching film and recognizing during the game that they were going under screens got me those open looks at the 3-point line,” Cantrell said. “Our plays and my teammates also helped me to get good looks. It’s a great feeling to know that I had a positive impact on this win and I’m glad I could hit some shots for my girls.”
North learned a lot from that loss to the Rebels earlier this month and the Rangers weren’t going to make the same mistakes twice.
“We changed some things defensively,” Force said. “They had a kid hurt us last week when we played and we were able to slow down some of their leading scorers a little bit tonight, and we made some other kids take shots and step up. We controlled the boards. Alex (Hamilton) and Cami (Welty) I think combined for 25 rebounds. Sam hit some big shots throughout and Angelie (Cisternino) had a big three in the fourth quarter when she got loose.”
Eight of North’s losses this season were by seven points or less.
The Rangers found a way to close out a close game on Monday.
“Girls were just able to make plays on both ends of the court, and that’s something we haven’t been able to come up with,” Force said. “We’ve been in that situation a lot and it always seems like the other team has that dude that steps up and makes plays down the stretch. We haven’t been able to do that, so I’m proud that we had multiple girls step up and make game-deciding plays in the final three or four minutes.”
Cantrell led the Rangers with 19 points and five 3-pointers, Welty and Hamilton scored six points each, Cisternino added four, and Ella Powalie scored three points.
Welty pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds.
North closes out the regular season on Wednesday at home against Mayfield and then travels to Wadsworth on Saturday to kick off the postseason.
