NEW WASHINGTON — Buckeye Central’s chances of winning a Northern 10 Athletic Conference championship took a hit at the hands of a very good Carey defense Friday night.
The Blue Devils held the Buckettes to seven-for-34 shooting from the floor and controlled the tempo of the game the entire night in a 27-21 upset win.
With the loss, BC fell to 12-2 in the conference and 14-4 overall. Seneca East clinched a share of the conference title and, at 14-1, has just one conference game remaining.
Carey improved to 8-6 in the conference, 11-6 overall. And it was the Carey defense that was the difference in the game. Only three Buckettes scored in the game and the Buckeye Central never scored more than six points in a quarter.
Carey coach Phil Vaughn agreed that his defense was the difference in the game.
“They played 32 minutes of defense tonight,” Vaughn said of his team. “I can’t say enough about it. (Buckeye Central) runs some great sets and they are very good at it. There’s so many ball screens and off-ball screens. And our girls just communicated well and worked through everything. I can’t say enough about the total team effort tonight.”
“We just didn’t make very many shots and, give credit to Carey for being very sound defensively and they took away some things,” Buckeye Central coach Abram Kaple said. “But at the end of the day, you can’t score 21 points and expect to win.
“They were just pressuring us and playing hard and working through our screens,” he added.
BC led for the final time in the game at 5-2 on a Lexi Evak basket, but, from that point, the Blue Devils grabbed a 12-11 lead at the half and BC never led again after that. Carey held a 20-17 lead after three periods and limited BC to just one basket and four points in the fourth period.
Vaughn said that, despite his team’s effort, there are things they still need to improve on.
“We need to hit more shots, honestly,” Vaughn said. “We need to take care of the basketball a little bit better in crunch time. We’re going to keep shooting and keep shooting. We want to be playing our best basketball heading into tournaments, that’s for sure.
“It’s one of those wins you kinda look at,” Vaughn added. “They came into our place early in the season and they got up on us 20-some points and we kinda laid down. So, this one meant a lot to us. To beat a good basketball team on their home floor, that’s good for our program.”
No player reached double figures in the game. Junior point guard Taylor Ratliff paced BC with eight points and sophomore Claudia Pifher added seven.
“We got looks and got shots and we got the shots from where we wanted but the ball just didn’t go in,” Kaple said. “We just have to do a better job of making shots.”
Carey won the junior varsity game, 30-17.
Box score
Carey 5 7 8 7 — 27
Buckeye Central 5 6 6 4 — 21
Carey (11-6, 8-6 N10): Shots 10-39; 3-pt. shots 4-25 (Ellison Roark, Alaina Tiell, Ady Stewart, Sadie Arend); Free throws 3-8; Rebounds 24; Turnovers 12. Scoring: Ellison Roark 2 0 5, Alaina Tiell 2 0 5, Avarie Stewart 2 1 5, Ady Stewart 1 0 3, Sadie Arend 3 2 9.
Buckeye Central (14-4, 12-2 N10): Shots 7-34; 3-pt. shots 1-9 (Taylor Ratliff); Free throws 6-10; Rebounds 26 (Lexi Evak 11); Turnovers 16. Scoring: Claudia Pifher 2 3 7, Taylor Ratliff 3 1 8, Lexi Evak 2 2 6.
JV: Carey 30-17.