PAINESVILLE–After a tough season-opening loss to Cardinal on Monday, Kirtland’s girls’ basketball team rebounded with a 41-27 nonconference win at Harvey on Tuesday.
The Hornets pulled away midway through the second quarter, sparked by a nine-point run that began late in the first. Kirtland never looked back, outrebounding the Tigers 37-28 and showcasing a balanced offensive attack with nine players contributing to the scoring.
“I was really proud of how we came out. I knew they were going to put some pressure on us early. We definitely wanted to handle that better than we did last night,” said Kirtland coach Paul Force. “To the girls’ credit, on a quick turnaround, we were able to come out and execute some things. They gave us different looks. Coach is always good at changing it up on defense over there, and I feel like the girls didn’t panic as much. They trusted each other. They used the whole floor, and we were able to execute what we wanted to do on offense a little bit better.”
On Monday, the Hornets struggled to find their rhythm early in the game against Cardinal. That wasn’t the case in Painesville.
“We talked about playing 32 minutes last night. I feel like it took us a good 14-15 minutes to kind of wake up to the pace of the game,” Force said. “I think we stepped on the floor tonight with a little bit of a different mindset. We wanted to compete. These games are a little more fun early on when it’s a little bit back and forth, back and forth. When you look up, and it’s an eight or 12-point difference, that makes it an uphill climb, and that’s what last night was. But each game is a different entity, so we were on to this one. They flushed that one last night, and I’m proud of how they responded.”
The Hornets’ scoring was spread across their roster, led by Gabby D’Amato and Lauren Palagyi with eight points each. Karli DiFranco added six points while grabbing a team-high 11 rebounds, and Anna Dumstorff contributed five points and eight boards.
“I think it’s them being unselfish and being there for each other a little more tonight, and not being afraid to come get the ball, not being afraid to take shots. The ball moved pretty well,” Force said. “I still think we have to take a little bit better care of the ball. Our rebounding was outstanding tonight, led by Karli DiFranco. It was hard to take her off the floor when she was getting every single rebound.”
Kirtland led 18-13 at halftime and maintained control throughout the second half, finishing with 13 points in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
Harvey was led by Jazlyn Miller with eight points, followed by Kilah Snyder and Haleigh Lewis with five apiece.
Despite holding Kirtland to 41 points, Harvey coach Jerimie Acree said there’s room for improvement.
“Overall, the effort was there, but that’s the standard. When people say, ‘You play hard, coach,’ that’s almost like an insult, because that’s what we do anyway,” Acree said. “We had three keys to victory before the game. One was rebounding, which we didn’t do a good job on the defensive end. Number two was defending, which I feel like we did well. And then number three was finishing, and we didn’t do that well at all. We did not finish at the rim. We’ve got to play better.”
Kirtland improved to 1-1 on the season and hosts Orange on Tuesday. Harvey will face Riverside next.
“We have to have a short memory,” Acree said. “We’ve got Riverside next, who is much bigger, much longer. They’re going to play some zone. Most teams are going to play zone against us because they feel like our perimeter shooting is average at best, and so we have to continue to attack gaps, look for skip passes, and get downhill.”
