STEVE GOLDMAN
PERRY – With a clutch win on Wednesday night, the Perry girls remain very much alive in the race for the championship of the Chagrin Division of the Chagrin Valley Conference.
The Pirates had to work overtime to do it, but were able to pull out a 34-30 win to hand visiting Kenston its first division loss. Elisse Sailors (10 points, 6 rebounds) made five of her six free-throw attempts in the extra session to win it after the teams finished regulation deadlocked at 28.
Perry generally struggles form the foul line, but not Sailors. And that certainly wasn’t lost on its coach, Ryan Dolatowski.
“I pulled (Sailors) over (during) one timeout and said, ’You have to go get the ball,’” he said. “She has by far our best percentage from the line. And she wants to shoot (in that type of situation).”
The Bombers (11-6 overall), who would have clinched at least a share of the title had they won, still lead the division at 6-1. Perry is right behind at 6-2, with Chagrin Falls having three losses. The two schools will meet again on Feb. 17 at Kenston. The Bombers also face Aurora twice, while the Pirates (11-6) play West Geauga.
Defense dominated in this one, as the score suggests, but the pace was also deliberate on both sides.
“I said at the end (that) people are going to see this box score and go ‘34-30, overtime… that must have been a real ugly game,’” Dolatowski said. “The thing is, they missed a great game (because) every possession was an individual battle.
“I said this: ‘The lower the score, the better I like our chances.’ Just because we’ll grind it out, they run a lot of sets, the flow of the game slows down. (Kenston coach Kevin Hinkle) was mixing up zone and man. I was just fine. We had some really, really long possessions.”
Each team led by as many as six. Perry grabbed a 7-1 advantage midway through the first period but went scoreless for the next seven-plus minutes. Kenston grabbed a 19-13 lead when Stephanie Deuley (8 points) canned a long two-pointer and then a 3-point basket for the first five points after the break.
The sides then traded baskets twice, with the Bombers going up 23-17 at the 3:10 mark of the third quarter when Grace Moran stole the ball and scored on a driving layup, although she missed the ensuing free throw.
However, Sailors closed the period with a trey, and a triple by Cecilia Siegel (8 points) knotted it at 23 with 6:23 remaining. No more scoring occurred until less than three minutes remained, when Iza Zitney (4 assists) found Kaley Kahoun for a layup to finish the 8-0 run and put the Pirates up 25-23.
“We had taken some threes before that (but didn’t hit any),” Dolatowski said. “They were quick threes, which drives me nuts. We work the ball for four, five or six passes before we really have separation and an open shot.”
Kenston tied it on the next possession on a 15-footer by Katie Ross (8 rebounds), but after a timeout, Zitney passed to Siegel, who sank another 3-pointer. The Bombers countered immediately on a trey by Ali Read with 1:24 to go, tying it again at 28.
Both teams failed on their final two possessions in regulation, with Read’s jumper hitting the back of the rim at the buzzer.
In the overtime, moments after a Sailors steal, Sailors hit two foul shots, after which Kenston missed a 3-pointer and Meghan Blaha (8 points, 7 boards, 4 blocked shots) rebounded. The Bombers went to a fouling strategy, and Kaley Kahoun split a one-and-one with 1:13 left to make it 31-28.
Kenston missed another 3-point attempt , but got the ball back when the Pirates missed a one-and-one. But after Sailors rebounded yet another errant triple attempt, she nailed a one-and-one for a 33-28 lead with 10.8 seconds remaining.
Deuley drove for a layup for her team’s only two points in OT, but Sailors spilt two more free throws to clinch it at the 2.8 second mark.
Altogether, Perry was seven-of-13 from the line while the Bombers managed just one-of-six from that venue.
“Give credit to their defense; it took us out of some things we wanted to do,” Hinkle said about the stretch run. “And I think we panicked a little bit instead of just working through what we normally work through. But give credit to their defense, and we just didn’t execute our offense when we needed to.”
Megan Waldorff had eight points and six caroms for Kenston. Teammate Meghan Cardaman had four assists before fouling out in the final minute of overtime.
Goldman is a freelance writer from South Euclid.
