CONNEAUT — The Conneaut girls basketball team weathered one storm Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it couldn’t weather a second one.

Eight inches or so of lake-effect snow over night didn’t keep the Spartans from hosting Lakeview. However, Ali Gagne blew through Garcia Gymnasium and scored just as many points as the entire Conneaut team in leading the Bulldogs to a 66-46 non-conference victory.

Gagne surpassed Vicki Lawrence, who scored 45 points at Harding on Dec. 23, 1976, to set the school record at 46 points.

“She was on,” Lakeview coach Adam Lewis said. “I didn’t realize she was doing as well as she was. I didn’t know she was close to the school record until they told me here at the end.”

“We knew she was their best player,” Conneaut coach Tony Pasanen said. “We just weren’t aware of her (in relation to where she was). I felt the whole game we didn’t play good defense. She’s a good all-around scorer. She can shoot and she can drive.”

Gagne surpassed the school mark on a feed from Abby Pavlik as the Lakeview bench erupted with 46 seconds remaining. And the Bulldogs had every right to cheer, they played a big role in the record.

“It was my teammates, really,” Gagne said. “They got the ball to me and my shot was on. I couldn’t have done it without them. They’re a great team and they work so hard.”

Gagne scored in every way imaginable. She drove to the hole, hit short and mid-range jumpers, made layups in transition, connected on a 3-pointer and made free throws.

“They were just overplaying me,” Gagne said. “My teammates just got the ball to me when I was open. And then sometimes, you just have to make something happen (yourself).”

“We tried to switch constantly as far as what we were doing,” Pasanen said. “They had good strong guard play and the guards were aware she was hot. More of the credit should go to her teammates. They realized she was hot and did a good job working the ball to get it to her.”

Lakeview (8-3, 5-0 in All-American Conference) outscored the Spartans (6-6), 17-5, over the opening six minutes and 25-8 at the end of the first period.

“When the girls do things right, they’re awesome,” Pasanen said. “For some reason, they go through stretches where they’re not all on the same page. We can’t afford to do that against good teams.

“The girls are going to fight. There’s no doubt about that. They battled back, but they can’t continue to dig themselves holes.”

Gagne tallied 14 points in the period.

An 8-0 run in the middle of the second quarter had the Bulldogs up 24, 37-13, with 1:40 to play in the half. Gagne scored six of those eight, totaling eight in the quarter.

In the first 16 minutes of action, Conneaut committed nearly as many turnovers — 20 — as Gagne had points — 22.

“It was definitely a total team effort as far as defense,” Lewis said. “It took everyone, but especially the guards up front today. They did a nice job taking up space and intercepting passes.

“We work a lot on anticipating the pass and once the trap is made, continuing to rotate once the play has gone on.”

“It’s always the same thing with us,” Pasanen said. “It’s just decision making. If we don’t start the first quarter (in a hole, we’re OK). We played them even for the other three quarters. The first quarter killed us.”

Consecutive buckets from Brittany Johnson had the Spartans down 20, 37-17, at the break.

Through three periods, Lakeview held a 46-27 lead.

A 9-2 spurt from Conneaut cut the deficit to 16 with 3:52 to play in the game. Johnson scored four of those points, Tiffany Wick had three and Donielle Yendriga added the other one. Two free throws, a steal and layup from Johnson got the Spartans to within 14, 56-42, with 2:30 left.

Seven points from Gagne extended that lead back to 19, 63-44, as she set the school record.

Lizzy Konitsney scored eight of the points Gagne couldn’t score and had 12 boards. Jamie Sentner tallied six points. Gagne had eight rebounds and Abby Pavlik had four assists.

Johnson netted 16 points and 11 boards to pace Conneaut. Wick scored 11 points.

Ettinger is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.