Olentangy’s defense lifts Lady Braves past Golden Eagles, 51-40

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

In what turned into a defen­sive strug­gle, it would be the Lady Braves who would come away with the victory.

In the end, Olentangy’s full-court pres­sure would turn the tide in the Lady Braves favor as John Feasel’s club posted a 51–40 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vic­tory over host Big Wal­nut Fri­day night in Sunbury.

“We made key stops when Big Wal­nut was mak­ing runs at the lead,” Feasel said after the game. “They refused to go away qui­etly, and we expected that. It’s tough to win on the road in the OCC, and tonight’s game was a per­fect exam­ple of that.”

Olen­tangy (13–3, 8–1 OCC), cling­ing to a 40–36 lead fol­low­ing a 3-point play by the Golden Eagles’ Emily Chucta with 6:42 to play, put the game away with an 11–4 run led by 6-foot-10 senior Brooke Zwayer’s 3-basket spree.

“Every time Big Wal­nut chal­lenged for the lead our offense would pick us up and give us a cush­ion” Feasel said. “it was a com­plete team effort on our part.”

For Big Wal­nut (9–6, 4–5 OCC), it came down the fact that when the Golden Eagles was mak­ing a run at the lead, they had too many stretches where they could not score — and the final six min­utes of the game was a per­fect exam­ple where Big Wal­nut could only pro­duce bas­kets by Sky­lar Fleak and Chucta while turn­ing the ball over 5 times.

“We did a good job defen­sively against Olen­tangy, but we were incon­sis­tent on offense,” BW head coach Bob Scott said. “Give credit to Olen­tangy, they did a good job pres­sur­ing us when the game got close.”

Olen­tangy, sparked by senior Court­ney Hale and senior Gina Mic­cinilli who com­bined for 14 points, includ­ing a pair of treys apiece, held an 8-point 24–17 lead on a pair of free throws by senior Lydia Hyburg with 6:13 left in the open­ing half.

Big Wal­nut ral­lied behind Chucta who counted a 3-point play and a layin in a 34-second span to close the gap to 24–22 with 4:40 on the clock. Over their final 10 pos­ses­sions of the half, the Golden Eagles counted only a Makenna Ham­mond jumper from the lane while turn­ing the ball over 4 times and went into the half down by six, 30–24.

The third period was a stale­mate as the Braves outscored the Golden Eagles 8–7 to take a 38–31 lead into the final quar­ter. The two rivals were a com­bined 4-for-20 from the field while com­mit­ting 5 turnovers apiece.

“Our defense kept the game close, but we wasted oppor­tu­ni­ties to put points on the board by turn­ing the ball over,” Scott said.

Big Wal­nut totaled 26 turnovers in 63 pos­ses­sions, TOs that handed the Braves a total of 18 points. Olen­tangy turned the ball over 16 times in 63 pos­ses­sions at the cost of 8 points.

The vic­tory gave the Braves, who won the first meet­ing 68–28 behind fresh­man Kelly Meade’s 21 points on Decem­ber 7 at Olen­tangy, a sweep of the reg­u­lar sea­son series with the Golden Eagles.

“If there is a pos­i­tive for us, it’s a fact that we played a more com­pet­i­tive game this time around,” Scott said.

Olentangy’s bal­anced scor­ing attack was led by Hyburg with 13 points and Hale and Zwayer with 10 points apiece. Senior Katie Heath and Mic­cinilli con­tributed 6 points apiece. The Braves shot 38.3 per­cent (18-for-47) from the field, adding 11 free throws in 17 attempts (64.7 percent).

Big Wal­nut was led by Chucta and Fleak with game-highs of 15 points apiece. Ham­mond was next with 5 points. The Golden Eagles shot 37.8 per­cent (14-for-37) from the floor and were 10-for-12 at the line (83.3 per­cent). Big Wal­nut, led by Fleak’s 8 boards, claimed a 31–28 edge off the glass. Hyburg pulled down 7 rebounds for Olentangy.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jan 23 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.