Document text
Grizzlies get defensive By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings They made some nifty no-look passes and drilled a few key 3's too, but more than anything the Ashland High girls basketball team proved that there's just no substitution for old-fashioned muscle. The Grizzlies outrebounded McNary 38-15, held the Celtics to 22 percent shooting, and generally had their way inside and out Thursday night en route to a 52-31 Class 4A state playoff win at Mountain Avenue gym. Ashland High senior post Marla Morin backs in against McNary freshman post Erin Yankus during Ashland's 52-31 Class 4A second-round playoff win Thursday night at Mountain Avenue gym. Morin led the Grizzlies with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Ashland Daily Tidings/CHRIS MILLER Ashland's best defensive performance of the season earned the team a third-round date at Tualatin (17-7), at 7 p.m. Saturday. The winner of that game will take on Redmond on Tuesday at the University of Portland's Chiles Center in the first round of the 4A state championships. "We just wanted to work really hard on defense," said Grizz sophomore point guard Alysse Carlson, who finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and three steals. "We're a big defensive team and so all week we've been working really hard on defense, making sure that we're going to be in the right spot at the right time." They almost always were. The Grizzlies (18-7) held the Celtics (16-10) to just 10 points in the first half and 17 through three quarters with a suffocating, energetic defense that the visitors never figured out. Only one Celtic - senior all-star guard Kristin Yankus - scored in double figures. Nobody else managed more than four for McNary, which hit just 4 of 21 first-half shots. Senior post Marla Morin - who, along with post Julia Sobolik and forward Chloe Hansen, played her final game at McNeal - led the Grizzlies with 18 points, 12 rebounds and three steals. Sophomore guard Hilary Huyett, playing in her first playoff game as a Grizzly, added 10 points, including a pair of treys in the second quarter that helped Ashland pull away. "There are things that we need to work on," Huyett said, "but there's things we know how to do and we just didn't execute them exactly to perfection. But, you're never going to have a perfect game." The Grizzlies led by eight after one, by 14 at the half and by 20 heading into the fourth quarter, allowing first-year head coach Steve Humann to empty his bench in the closing minutes. "I feel very pleased for Marla Morin, Julia Sobolik and Chloe Hansen," Humann said. "It was their last game on their home floor and they went out as winners. That's very important." Ashland scored six of its first eight points inside to take an 8-2 lead and draw a quick timeout by fourth-year McNary coach Marlo Cleary. The Celtics closed within 10-7 before allowing the Grizzlies to score the final five points of the quarter - three on free throws. In a trend that would prove decisive, the Grizzlies outrebounded their shorter Valley League opponents 10-3 in the first eight minutes. Ashland added to its end-of-the-first-quarter run by banking the first six points of the second to go up 21-7. McNary cut that deficit to 21-10 on Kristen McDonnell's runner with 1:14 left in the half, but Huyett swished a 3 with 38 seconds left to give the Grizzlies the halftime momentum. McNary, which hit just 4 of 23 field goal attempts in the middle two quarters, never got closer than 13 after halftime, and fell behind by as much as 23 in the fourth quarter. "When you're in the playoffs, you gotta bring your best game, and we didn't have our best game tonight," Cleary said. "But I can't blame our effort. We went down kicking and screaming." The Grizzlies did give their final home crowd something other than stout defense to remember them by. Carlson's no-look pass on a fastbreak led to two points by sophomore post Abeni Hill, and Carlson also made two spectacular driving lay-ups in the fourth quarter - both ending in three-point plays. And of course, there was Morin. Four days after being named a first-team Southern Oregon Conference all-star for the second season in a row, Ashland's 6-1 undisputed leader set the tone early by scoring eight first-quarter points. She also wreaked havoc on defense, roaming the paint and jumping into passing lanes. "We knew that their posts didn't shoot a whole lot, so every time that their posts got the ball anywhere outside the perimeter, we just clogged up the middle," Morin said. "We didn't want them to get any easy baskets." Can the Grizzlies do that again on Saturday? "We can't be too confident," Carlson said, "but I think we'll come in strong and we'll give it our best and we'll give it our all. This is it. We've got to give it as much as we can. "We want to play as far as we can in the playoffs. We want to get up to that Chiles Center." Game Notes: Ashland's defensive gem allowed the Grizzlies to survive a 22-turnover night - eight of which came in the fourth quarter. The Grizzlies also managed to get through another poor shooting night in which they made just 18 of 53 field goal attempts (34 percent). In their last two games, the Grizzlies have made just 33 of 106 shots (31 percent). � In their final games in Ashland, Hansen scored two points on a pair of third-quarter free throws and Sobolik scored six on three field goals. � Humann said after the win that he has one game tape of Tualatin, but didn't elaborate on what kind of team the Timberwolves are. Tualatin clinched the Pac-9 Conference's No. 2 seed with a 55-44 win over Forest Grove a week ago today, finishing 13-3 in league play. Junior Lovena Chaput scored a team-high 11 points in that win, while senior post Mandy Mellinger added 11. The Wolves shot just 25 percent (14-for-55) and turned the ball over 33 times against Forest Grove, but outrebounded the Vikings 46-25. Boys Basketball At Eagle Point, Ashland cashed in from the foul line in the fourth quarter to deny Eagle Point an opportunity for its first Southern Oregon Conference win in a 63-56 season-ending win on Thursday night. The Grizzlies (11-13, 4-10 SOC) hit 9 of 15 from the line in the fourth quarter. Free throws proved to be the difference, with Ashland converting 15 of 25, while the Eagles (7-17, 0-14) only made two of seven. AHS senior guard Bryan Clevenger scored eight of his game-high 18 points in the final quarter, going 6-for-10 from the line. The Grizzlies also got 12 points out of senior guard Nick Palmesano and 11 from senior post Clint Bryan. Eagle Point outrebounded the Grizzlies 33-26, with Brandon Anderson and Jacob Goodson combining for 21. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -