BOB ETTINGER
ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — Conneaut senior post Nichele Johnson knew she might be playing against the rival Edgewood Warriors for the last time. She wanted to make sure she left an impression.
And did she ever in a 47-27 Spartans’ victory over the Warriors.
“That was the key,” Edgewood coach Chris Juncker said. “(Johnson, who stands at 6-feet) single-handedly won the game. She scored, but she’s still got to get the ball. Once she got it, we couldn’t stop her. We don’t have the size. We tried to be physical with her. We did the best we could.
“Without those points, we win. We did our best on her, but there’s nothing you can do with that size.”
Johnson scorched the nets for 26 points, hauled in 13 rebounds, made a pair of steals and blocked a shot.
“This was my last game against Edgewood,” Johnson said. “I wanted to go all out.
“I had a definite height advantage on them tonight. Coach (Tony Pasanen) kept saying to pound it inside. That’s what (the guards) did.”
Those guards kept putting Johnson in a good position to score.
“They did, actually,” Johnson said. “Even when I had the ball in the low post. I was getting double- and triple-teamed sometimes. I just went up and did the best I could (when they passed me the ball).”
The Spartans (12-4) forced the Warriors (5-10) into a poor shooting night. Edgewood was just 9 of 41 (21.9 percent) from the field.
“Our goal was to keep the ball outside,” Pasanen said. “We did that the majority of the time. We did a good job closing gaps. I may find we did better than I think we did when I watch the tape, but the coach in me looks at the few times we didn’t. I expect us to be perfect every time.
“We did a good job closing gaps and keeping the ball on the outside.”
“We went to the line and didn’t do very well from there (7-18, 38-9 percent),” Juncker said. “We had a lot of missed layups early on especially that could have changed the momentum.
“Our problem was putting the ball in the hoop. It’s definitely been one of struggles all year.”
And once a shot was missed, the Warriors had a hard time getting the rebound. Conneaut held a 53-24 edge on the boards.
“At the beginning, Edgewood came out and played hard,” Pasanen said. “Harder than we did, if you ask me. We called a timeout and I called the girls out and told the to focus.
“From that point on, they were really aggressive on offense and defense. I told them I’d rather see them get a foul over being over the back in being aggressive rather than sitting back.”
Aside from Johnson’s 13 boards, Sarah Campbell (7 points, 3 assists, 2 steals) had 10, Marissa Olmstead (8 points, 4 assists) had eight and Brittany Johnson had seven.
Chelsey Miller and Ashley Hummer each scored eight points to lead Edgewood. Meghan Cunha had seven rebounds.
