CHESTERLAND—North made a run at host West Geauga but the Wolverines fended off the Rangers to seal a 34-32 Senior Night win on Monday.
The Wolverines held a double-digit lead for most of the contest before the Rangers cut their deficit to just one possession with 21.9 seconds remaining in the game.
“That was probably the best job we’ve done defensively all year,” said West Geauga coach Brandon Stewart. “We were very active on the rebounds, and we pressured the ball. We forced them into shooting a lot of 3-pointers. We were going to take our chances that hopefully, they weren’t on tonight. Our defense, credit to them, there were a lot of hands in the faces and a lot of contested shots.”
Stewart was right, the Rangers did live behind the 3-point line but they didn’t convert a three until Angelie Cisternino and Samantha Cantrell both drained one in the fourth quarter to help the Rangers get back into the game.
The Rangers finished just 2-of-31 from behind the arc.
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“That’s a big part of our game,” said North coach Paul Force of the 3-pointer. “I thought we moved the ball pretty well and we executed some things and got some good looks, but we shot 15 or 16 percent and less than 10 percent from the 3-point line. They have a big post presence inside that made it difficult to get easy buckets, so we had to take the shots we were given.”
Maggie Furst led the Wolverines with a game-high 14 points, but she also created a difficult situation for North’s shooters as they tried to penetrate the lane. She blocked several shots and altered many more.
Faelynn Beckrest provided West Geauga with a complementary shooter as she finished with eight points and distributed the ball to her teammates.
“That’s what we need,” Stewart said of the one-two punch. “We need contributions all the way through, whether it’s two points, four points, whatever, we just need to be a threat on the floor when you’re out there so teams don’t focus on those two as much as they already do and take some of the pressure off of them.”
Ava Borz, Maiya Jones, Sammy Paskowski, Callie Kormos, Amelia Zaffiro, and Elsa Henderson each scored two points for the Wolverines.
With the win, West Geauga improved to 4-12.
Trailing 28-19 entering the fourth quarter, the Rangers went to work with Cantrell and Cisternino drained threes and Alex Hamilton scored three of her four points in the frame.
After pulling to within two points, the Rangers were unable to get the Wolverines to the free throw line as time expired.
“I think the effort has been there all year,” Force said. “It’s got to be a good combination of effort and execution. We’re not blessed enough offensively to be able to mis-execute a couple of times on the defensive end or offensive end. Those mistakes are kind of magnified when we’re not scoring 55 or 60 points a game. In tighter games, that execution is going to be huge.”
Cami Welty led the Rangers with 12 points, Cantrell and Cisternino both finished with seven, Hamilton scored four, and Maddy Ferrari finished with two.
North dropped to 4-11 but six of their losses have been by seven points or fewer.
