Jan 21, 2025
Staff photo / Brian Yauger Garfield’s Mandy Cardinal drives down the court while being guarded by Champion sophomore Brilea Woods. Cardinal scored a game-high 11 points.
A slow first half served as a gut check for Garfield on Monday.
At halftime, coach Aaron Gilbert challenged his team.
The G-Men survived Champion’s defensive push, found their scoring touch and downed the Golden Flashes, 46-25.
“We’ve just been very inconsistent with our play,” Gilbert said. “We had a big gut check at halftime. The game could have gone one of two ways, the way the game was going. They did a nice job bothering Mandy (Cardinal) tonight, and other people had to step up and they did. I really kind of told them at halftime that it’s going to be a ‘want to’ in the second half. Who wants it more? And thankfully, we were the ones that wanted it more.”
Champion’s box-and-one defense on Cardinal limited the junior to a single bucket in the first half. She finished with 11 points, leading the team.
With Cardinal covered for much of the game, opportunities rose for players elsewhere.
“We had talked about how that’s what they were going to do. You can replicate it in practice, but when you get to a game, it’s completely different,” Gilbert said. “Sometimes we just need to calm down. The key with us, with our consistency, is we just haven’t had that consistent play out of a number of players to know who’s going to be hot and who’s not. Tonight, freshman Leah Hill stepped up and really helped us out when we needed her, you know, especially when Kolby (Fresch) fouled out. And a sophomore coming in off the bench with Kylene (McMayon). She did a nice job of just kind of helping more than anything. Handle the ball, so that way we could get some looks for Mandy in the second half, which she was able to get some.”
The win moves Garfield to 6-7 on the season and 5-3 in league play.
Champion falls to 6-10 on the year and 4-5 in the league.
The loss ends the Flashes’ three-game win streak. Despite the loss, first-year Champion coach Sean Zekkour is happy with the effort.
“They were coachable, and they followed the game plan. That’s been our kind of Achilles’ heel this year, to get a little excited because of the youth and go off a little bit. Maybe get defensive misalignments, miss some adjustments and rotations. But tonight we had a shoot around, worked on the game plan, talked about it, put them through different situations, and tonight they executed it,” Zekkour said. “I will always be happy with that type of game.”
Champion looks to get back in the win column on Wednesday at Mineral Ridge.
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