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Quakers leave it all on the floor

Salem’s Jessica Slocum (left) dribbles around Howland’s Mackenzie Maze on Thursday. (Photo by Gary Leininger)

WARREN — Howland girls basketball coach John Diehl has been talking about how well the Tigers have been playing defense for much of the season.

The second-seeded Tigers, however, gave him an opportunity to talk a little about their offense, as well, following a 51-37 victory over eighth-seeded Salem in a Division II sectional championship game at Howland High School on Thursday night.

Howland played about as well as it has all season to build a lead to open the game and later to put the game away.

“We had a perfect stretch there in the first quarter,” Diehl said. “Salem called the one timeout and I told the girls they couldn’t play any better than they were. In the fourth, we switched to a 1-3-1 half-court trap and that gave us some separation. That’s a good team over there. They’re young, but they’re the future for around here.”

The second-seeded Tigers (19-5) will play fifth-seeded Ravenna Southeast, who upset third-seeded Poland, 72-71, in a district semifinal at Austintown-Fitch on Monday at 7:45 p.m. Top-seeded Beloit West Branch will face off with fourth-seeded Struthers in the first semifinal at 6 p.m.

“I watched (Southeast) play twice,” Diehl said. “They’re big and have some great shooters. They’re seven deep and all seven can shoot threes. It will be a tall task. They score a lot of points. If the defense can stop them from scoring a lot of points, we’ll have a chance. If they shoot well and score a lot of points, they will beat us.”

The Tigers opened the game on a 13-1 run to take a 15-5 lead through the first eight minutes. Sara Price netted seven points and Kendyl Buckley added four more.

The Quakers slowly worked their way back in without the benefit of any kind of a significant run to get within two, 30-28, following a pair of free throws from Leah Menegos with 45.9 seconds left in the third period. They were down, 31-28, to open the fourth.

“We got in a hole early and we had to scrape and claw to get back in it,” Salem coach Vince Nittoli said. “We got a little tired. I’m not using that as an excuse. They played with all heart the whole game. (Howland’s) a good team. They played well when they needed to play well.”

Howland found the perfect formula and ran away from the Quakers with a 13-0 run to open the final quarter and led, 44-28, with 4:51 remaining. Price netted five points and four other Tigers got on the board during the spurt.

“Sara finally figured out what to do offensively,” Diehl said. “(Salem) was down a bit. We had a lot of breakaways. We ran well, we got steals, we had more gas in the tank than they did. A lot of teams, when you’re playing a team with a lot of freshmen, they don’t know how to pace themselves for the whole game. Trust me, they’ll learn.”

“Coach Diehl changed the defense up a bit,” Nittoli said. “They knew the situation we were in and they knew we had to score points quickly. They forced things and that was the turning point. They had a 13-0 run and that sealed the game.”

Price, who was face-guarded for much of the night still finished with 20 points to lead all scorers. Mackenzie Maze was 6 of 7 from the charity stripe in tallying eight points and Kayla Clark added six points. Alex Ochman and Gabby Hartzell each had six points off the bench.

Ellie Davidson and Echo Mayer-Kutz each had 10 points to lead the Quakers. Menegos had seven points and six rebounds.

SALEM: 5-11-12-9–37

HOWLAND: 15-9-7-20–51

SALEM SCORING: Elly Exline 2-0-5, Ellie Davidson 2-6-10, Hayden Carner 0-0-0, Allee Davidson 0-0-0, Jessica Slocum 1-0-3, Echo Mayer-Kutz 3-4-10, Leah Menegos 2-3-7, Jaden Hamilton 0-0-0, Katie Moore 0-0-0, Helene Shontz 1-0-2. TEAM TOTALS: 10, 13-22: 37

HOWLAND SCORING: Izzy Albeet 0-1-1, Mackenzie Maze 1-6-8, Kendyl Buckley 1-2-4, Sarah Price 9-1-20, Kayla Clark 3-0-6, Alex Ochman 2-2-6, Gabby Hartzell 2-2-6. TEAM TOTALS: 18, 14-21: 51.

Three-point goals: Salem 2 (Exline, Slocum), Howland 1 (Price).

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