Deijah Swihart scored 13 points and MacKenzie Golden added 10 as Clear Fork defeated Ontario 55-37 in a non-conference girls’ basketball game at the “O-rena” on Tuesday night.
It was Clear Fork’s sixth win in their last seven games, but coach Heidi Roush acknowledged, “It wasn’t our prettiest game that’s for sure. I think we are pretty lucky to walk out of here with a win. Ontario stayed with us and played hard. We just couldn’t get over that 10 point hump there until about midway in the fourth quarter when we finally got a few steals and some layups that extended that lead a little bit. Not our best effort by far,” she said.
Golden hit a three-pointer with 5:42 left in the first quarter to give Clear Fork a (3-2) lead and another with 55 seconds to play in the quarter to put the Lady Colts up (11-5). Roush says the senior was key for them early. “I told the girls at halftime we were really lucky that MacKenzie was doing what she was. Without here we would not have been up by 10 at the half. There was no sense of urgency. We weren’t getting to our spots very quickly. We weren’t cutting very hard. We weren’t passing very hard. It felt like it was a walk through. We can’t get away with that in these games,” she said.
The Lady Colts did have 14 steals, four by Swihart and three by Golden, but Roush felt they were reaching a little bit on defense and trying to do too much. “We had too many breakdowns. It was like we weren’t real focused. Saturday everybody was focused on doing their job and playing good team defense,” she told Swankonsports.com after the game, “(Tuesday) is was kind of desperation they were feeling. They knew they should have been playing better and they started to kind of reach and do things that aren’t really helpful for our team. You can’t go for very steal and then your teammates have to help you constantly. You can’t loose your girl. You can’t not knock down that cutter. As a team we didn’t play great defense.”
Morgan Bailey scores all nine of her points in the first half and added a team high eight rebounds. Swihart and Mattie Van Orman had seven boards each.
The Ontario game was in the middle of a stretch when Clear Fork will play five games in the space of nine days. Roush says they need to maintain good focus. “We told them during break that we were lucky that we had four of five practices to prepare for every game over break. This week it is practice, game, practice, game, practice, game. I hope we will be able to step up for every one. I don’t know if Saturday’s big overtime win was a drain on the girls, so we had a bit of a letdown (Tuesday). I do think it is a bit of a challenge,” she said.
Clear Fork beat Ashland (49-48) in overtime on Saturday when Swihart scored at the buzzer after tying it with a three at the end of regulation.
The Lady Colts (7-5,4-4) will host Madison (5-8,2-7) on Thursday in Ohio Cardinal Conference play. Madison beat them (56-45) in early December. Roush says they remember. “Saturday’s win was a good one for the program. When we went over there last year we just didn’t show up. I think we lost by 40. Thursday’s game against Madison, the girls just feel they didn’t give it our best effort the first time around. I think they would at least like to be able to give Madison a little bit more competition then we did earlier this season,” said Roush.