Deijah Swihart scored 21 points and Erika Farst added 17 and Clear Fork belted Mansfield St. Peter’s (67-33) in non-conference girls’ basketball action at the Franciscan Center on Tuesday night.
After the first 3:15 of the game it was (12-0) Lady Colts as they frazzled the Lady Spartans, who were without two of their better players due to injury, with a full court zone press.
“I was a little nervous thinking that it was our first game and the girls might be a little tightly wound. I thought they did a great job of executing. They ran the presses really well and really that’s what got us going in the game,” said Clear Fork coach Heidi Roush.
The coach said a key for their improvement this year would be limiting turnovers. They only had four on Tuesday night.
“That is by far a record low for us. That is just unheard of for this team. I was really proud of the decision making, but also just their passing. I felt they held their focus a little bit better. They were making the easy pass and taking better care of the ball,” said Roush.
Swihart scored nine points in the first six minutes of the game and finished 10-22 from the floor to go along with four assists and four steals. Roush says she needs to aggressive offensively and she was in the opener.
“I thought she did a great job of shot selection. I took some talking into to get her to take some of those. She missed two and you could see her kind of think about not taking that third, but she has to in order for us to be successful because that is going to open up other kids,” she said.
Her running mate at the guard position Montana Walker, if her first varsity start, had 10 points three assists and two steals.
Roush said she was very impressed. “Montana needs to step in there and hit a couple of open shots and that was great because again it creates opportunities for everybody else,” she said after the game.
“Every time I put a kid in there I feel like you are scoring threat. Montana handled the ball really well, she had some steals and some assists, I don’t think she had a turnover, she played great defense, she took a charge, played a complete game,” she added.
There was great balance for Clear Fork in the win. Farst had a solid overall game by adding a team high 10 rebounds and four assists. Mattie Van Orman had eight points and seven rebounds. Morgan Bailey, saddled with foul trouble much of the night, had eight points and six boards.
“It was a great team effort and I thought the girls did a great job of finding one another in the offense and were patient. Even Morgan in foul trouble she was able to come back in there and get some buckets.” said Roush. “We had a lot of kids do a nice job and that is good going forward for the next game.”
St. Peter’s (0-2) was led by 12 points from Kenzie Hendrickson and nine from Victoria Keller. They visit rival Mansfield Christian in their Mid-Buckeye Conference opener on Saturday.
Clear Fork plays at Willard (2-0) in non-conference play on Thursday.