Only Lady Bulldogs able to get revenge against Greenfield

Posted: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:00 pm

By RANDY CAVIN
Press Sports
The Gleason girls gained some revenge from an early season loss to Greenfield with a near flawless game on defense. The Yellowjacket boys, meanwhile, completed a season series sweep over the struggling Bulldogs.
Gleason (13-4) got a split over its cross-country rival at home Tuesday night with a 51-33 win, while the Bulldogs took another setback with a 68-25 outcome.
Lady Bulldogs head coach Joel Ayers refused to take any coaching credit after the game. He instead gave all of the credit to his players for the job they did on defense.
“It really was not much coaching,” he said. “It was a nice job of playing. We worked on defense on what we wanted to do. They executed. We were not perfect, but we did a really good job of playing hard and talking. We talked our way through a lot of things.”
Both Gleason squads will take on Clarksburg at home on Friday in a District 13A matchup. The Lady Yellowjackets will have Lake County, the 9th-ranked team in Class A, on Friday.
The Yellowjackets pretty much had their own way against the overmatched Bulldogs, giving Greenfield head coach Peter Angelos a good opportunity to get some work in for some his younger players.
“We got some minutes for our young kids,” he said. “We recently brought up some eighth-graders, so that was nice.
Angelos was more than happy to get that extra work in for his younger players with a home game against Lake County coming up on Friday.
“They will have Devon Jones back, so that will make it harder,” he said. “They are good and it will be a tough test for us on Friday. Hopefully we will be ready for it.”
Gleason 51, G’field 33 (G)
The Lady Bulldogs made sure the Lady Yellowjackets (9-6) earned every basket they made on Tuesday by playing a good, disciplined defense.
Greenfield only shot 31 percent from the field. It was a total team effort by Gleason, but Briana Jones and Kim Quick played a huge part in it by grabbing a combined 12 defensive rebounds.
Jones led Gleason with eight boards on defense and 12 overall, while Quick had four defensive rebounds and five overall. Jones had a game-high 22 points and Quick was second in scoring for Gleason with 12 points.
Ayers said after the game that this might be Quick’s best game as a Lady Bulldog.
“She probably had the best game of her career, season or however you want to put it,” he said. “She played some good defense, made some trash buckets and big free throws. We need her to do that in order to win big games.
“She does not have to make long shots, but she has got to be a shooter. She did a good job and they all did a good job.”
Gleason also won with a short-handed bench. Courtney Taylor is out for the remainder of season with a knee injury she suffered against Bradford and Jasmine Taylor left the team shortly after the Martin Lions Club Tournament for undisclosed reasons.
Greenfield looked like it was going to be business as usual for them with Brittany Peoples hitting a 3-pointer just a few seconds into the game. Then Gleason went on a 10-point run sparked by Calay Smith’s 3-pointer followed by seven consecutive points from Jones.
Peoples broke Gleason’s scoring run with a short jumper to make a 10-5 game. Quick got one to fall while in the paint to make it 12-5. Ashton Pence got the Lady ’Jackets back to within five with her jumper and Jones made it a seven-point game once again on her basket to close out the first period.
Both teams went back and forth in the second period with Greenfield’s Kalee Kesterson hitting a 3-pointer to get her team within 22-16 at the half.
Gleason’s defense went right back to work in the third period, not allowing Greenfield to get many good looks at the basket. The Lady ’Jackets only hit one shot from the field in the period — a 3-pointer by Kesterson with 44 seconds to play.
Meanwhile, the Lady Bulldogs increased the lead to 34-23 and got Greenfield into foul trouble with drives to the basket.
Greenfield committed eight team fouls in the third period, which put Gleason in the bonus before the period was over.
The Lady Bulldogs hit 9-of-12 free throws, Quick converting two 3-point plays.
Jaclyn Montgomery had a solid game for Gleason with five points, three assists and four rebounds. Smith had eight points and five assists.
Peoples led Greenfield with 14 points, while Kesterson was second in scoring with eight.
G’field 68, Gleason 25 (B)
It took nearly seven minutes for Gleason (1-12) to score its first points in a game.
The Yellowjackets (11-3), meanwhile, were scoring at will from the opening tip-off all the way through the third period before substitutions from both sides entered the game in the final period.
Greenfield opened the game on a quick basket and 3-pointer by Tony Robinson, and the Bulldogs were looking at a 16-0 deficit before they knew it.
Keaton Collins stopped the bleeding with his basket to make it a 16-2 game. Austin Perry scored shortly afterward on a Greenfield turnover to make it 16-4. That was as close as the Bulldogs would for the rest of the game.
It only got worse for Gleason in the second period as the only point the Bulldogs could score came on the front-end of a pair of free throw attempts by Collins. Greenfield led 44-5 at the half.
The second half was a little better for the Bulldogs as they nearly matched the Yellowjackets in points with the ’Jackets getting the edge by outscoring the Bulldogs 24-20.
Angelos was glad to see his kids put forth a good effort even though the ’Jackets won by a landslide.
“I thought we were sharp early, and that is not always the case,” Angelos said. “We had a game last week where we came out and were half asleep. We were ready from the very beginning tonight.”
Perry did score a game-high 15 points for the Bulldogs with a pair of 3-pointers. Collins scored seven and Thomas Travis scored the other three for Gleason.
Hunter Crouse led Greenfield with 14 points, and Robinson scored 12. Tyler Hoke added 10 to give the ’Jackets three players in double figures. Published in The WCP 1.10.13