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BY JOHN GORDON jtgordon@leader.net
Tuesday, February 01, 2000 Page: 13
The Crestwood Comets’ junior-varsity girls basketball team has some
offensive fire power, and the players move the ball around extremely well. So
Coughlin’s head coach, Diane Breese, and her assistant, Cindy Zbierski, were
hard-pressed as to how to throw off the Lady Comet attack.
They decided to attack with a hard press.
The half-court traps they planned were the deciding factor in a hard-fought
39-27 decision the Lady Crusaders managed at the Crestwood High School gym
Thursday evening.
“The press worked well for us tonight,” Breese said. “We got several
turnovers from the traps.”
Turnovers were not a huge factor early in the game. Both sides were
executing their plays well and driving to the basket with confidence.
One steal, however, was turned into an easy hoop when Coughlin’s Mary
Pierandozzi intercepted a pass at half court and sped to the other end with
the ball. In transition, she flew ahead of the Comet defenders for a layup
that put the Crusaders in front 6-5 with 2:05 remaining in the opening period.
Pierandozzi finished the game with nine points, including a three-pointer.
Crestwood displayed some of its offensive prowess late in the first quarter
when Maura Morgan made a phenomenol fake on two Coughlin defenders and then
drove to the hoop and put home a strong layup that put the Comets in front
briefly, 7-6 with 22 seconds left. Morgan finished with a team high, 11
points. April Kish quickly responded for Coughlin by draining a jumper just
before the first-quarter buzzer sounded putting Coughlin in front to stay 8-7.
Kish tallied 12 points in the contest.
Michelle Oros added four points for Crestwood in the early part of the
second quarter with some accurate shooting, and the lead was just five with
three minutes to go before the half, 18-13. But Kish excelled once again as
she stole a pass at half court and drove to the basket to extend the Crusader
lead to 20-13 with 2:20 left.
Crestwood then closed out the quarter on a 5-4 run as Maura Morgan again
faked Crusader defenders out and put in a short jumper in the lane to cut the
lead to 22-16. Both sides exchanged buckets right before the half, and
Coughlin took a 24-18 lead heading into the final two quarters.
Coughlin’s Becky Gill was the catalyst in the Crusader “press success” in
the third quarter. She made several key steals that led to some easy buckets
and a 30-21 lead going into the fourth quarter. Gill also drained a pair of
treys in the contest and had a total of 12 points by game’s end.
The half-court press led to a 5-2 run in the opening minutes of the final
stanza as the Crusaders built a 12-point lead, the largest of the game. That
gap also was the final margin of victory, 39-27, in a game that was seemingly
closer than the score would indicate.
“The steals our traps produced turned out to be the deciding points in the
game,” coach Breese said. COUGHLIN (39) Kish 5 2-2 12, Gill 5 0-0 12,
Pierandozzi 4 0-0 9, King 0 0-2 0, Rava 0 0-2 0, Ford 2 2-2 6, Totals 16 4-8
39 CRESTWOOD (27) Morgan 4 3-5 11, Stout 2 1-2 5, Webby 1 0-0 2, Boone 1 0-0
3, Joyce 1 0-0 2, Oros 2 0-0 4, 11 4-7 27 3-point goals: Gill 2, Pierandozzi
1, Boone 1 Crestwood 7 11 3 6 – 27 Coughlin 8 16 6 9 – 39