Cloverdale falls victim to ranked Eels

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

CLOVERDALE -- A sea of purple flooded the gym at Cloverdale High School Tuesday night to witness the Class A No. 12 Lady Eels take down the Cloverdale Clovers 61-22.

Cloverdale (3-9, 0-2) feel behind from the beginning when Clay City (10-5, 5-0) sprinted out to a 9-0 lead largely on the back of their free throw shooting. Seven of the Eels' first nine points came from the stripe, and from there it was all Brielle Drelick.

The Clovers simply had no answer to the impressive senior who scored 17 points in the first half on the way to 19 for the game.

Clay City took the second quarter 23-2 as they raced ahead of the hosts. Drelick led the charge with an 8-2 run of her own before classmate Abby Reed chipped in with five in the frame.

Cloverdale's only bucket of the second quarter came from Paige Sinks who was able to sneak into a soft spot in the Eel zone defense and bank in an easy layup.

After halftime, Cloverdale managed to nearly double their halftime output, from six to 11, getting baskets from Amillia Nally and Paige Gruener, but the 22-point quarter from Clay City silenced any hope from the home side.

"(Our offensive struggles) were a huge part of it tonight," head coach Matthew Langdon said after the loss. "It even started to affect our defense. I really think we came out with a great game plan and the girls executed it well.

"I thought coming out it was our type of game. It was low scoring, they didn't put a lot of points up, but our offensive woes started to effect our defensive play at the end."

The fourth quarter was surprisingly all Cloverdale, though the Clay City starters were all benched as the game was fully in hand.

"Those girls are just good basketball players," Langdon added. "They know how to cut, they know how to get to the hole and they can shoot. They were just the better team tonight."

For the Clovers, Nally fouled out after scoring just five points, while Gruener ended with the same after she banked in a three-pointer late in the quarter. Sinks and Sydney Shrum each had four points and classmates Katie Walters and Justeena Wellington each added two.

Carmella Roeschlein had 14 for Clay City, while Reed had 11 with three buckets from long range. Madison Booe chipped in with six of her own, while Allie Miller and Michaela Riggs each had four points and Alex Wolfe had three including the game's final basket.

"We really need to work on shooting. It was turnovers early in the season, and the amount of turnovers is still high, but it's something we can deal with.

"We went 20 for 97 in the tournament over the weekend, but we need to just start shooting the ball."

The loss moves the Clovers to 3-2 on the season against 1A opponents and is the fifth straight overall for Langdon's team. Clay City improves to 5-1 against 2A squads. Cloverdale is in action again at South Vermillion (3A) Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

The Lady Eels also had their way against Cloverdale in junior varsity action Tuesday.

The Clovers stagnant offense was unable to produce points until a Kourtney Hubbard three pointer with 20 seconds left in the first quarter.

Cloverdale's sophomore led the way offensively with five points, Makalah Reed added four and Sydney Gutierrez banked in a two-pointer for all of the Clover scoring.

Sixteen points from freshman Logan Ellinger paced Clay City and sophomore Mahayle Durger added 13 of her own.

At Cloverdale

Varsity Game

Clay City -- 11 23 22 2 -- 61

Cloverdale -- 4 2 5 11 -- 22

Junior Varsity Game

Clay City -- 16 13 20 4 -- 53

Cloverdale -- 3 2 2 4 -- 11