NORTH ROBINSON — Colonel Crawford, coming off a 16-7 season, rightfully has high expectations for its girls basketball program this season.
The Lady Eagles roared out to a 12-1 lead and held off a pesky Northmor squad 42-24 in a non-league basketball season opener at Mac Morrison Gymnasium Wednesday night.
It wasn’t a perfect performance. For opening night, however, it was solid.
“We have a standard that we set for ourselves, and we’ve got a competitive team. I don’t think we played to the standard that we for ourselves for two and a half quarters,” head coach Zac Bauer said.
“From the end of the second to the end we didn’t play to our standards. We were sloppy with the ball, and we didn’t make shots.”
Despite the 15 turnovers and average shooting (14-of-33 from the field) it was good enough, thanks to Mira Holt’s 16 points and a solid supporting cast.
Junior point guard Gabby Roston added 6 steals and 5 rebounds and played her customary tenacious defense.
Northmor fell behind 25-10 at halftime as Shelby Cooper hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Head coach Freddie Beachy said his young team couldn’t make up the difference.
“We lost four seniors the last two years, and we got four underclassmen starting, plus two coming off the bench. We are very young, and they were very nervous, coming in here and big lights,” he said.
Ryann Brinkman, a 5-10 sophomore, led the Lady Knights with 9 points and 6 rebounds. Cooper added 5 points.
“I was proud of the way we played in the third and fourth quarters. We got steals. We just couldn’t convert. We shouldn’t be tired, the way we condition,” Beachy said. “All these girls (except senior guard Madison Simpson) are coming back next year.”
The hosts only outscored Northmor 17-14 after intermission.
“We pride ourselves in taking away easy looks from other teams. We didn’t do that for those quarters,” Bauer said.
Seven Colonel Crawford players scored, and Bauer rotated in at least 10 girls during the contest.
Lexi Rush and Lexi Duré and freshman Robin Ehmann provided sparks of the bench. Ehmann scored 4 points and added a similar number of rebounds in her first varsity outing.
“We have been really fortunate in that we have a lot of kids that can play and play at a high level, and again, they’re super competitive. It’s nice to be able to run kids in off the bench every 2 or 3 minutes and play in waves,” Bauer said.
“We really don’t miss a beat when we sub and that’s something that we pride ourselves on and it’s nice to be interchangeable.”
Bauer said his team’s fatigue made it less sharp.
“We led with stops and that fatigue factor wasn’t there. When we got tired, our communication went first. When communication goes, everything else gets sloppy and you saw that,” he said.
“Northmor, to their credit, made a lot of adjustments — and they made good adjustments and that gave us problems.”
The Lady Knights made typical youthful mistakes.
“We panicked and don’t get square to the basket,” Beachy said. “When they go warm up, they’re draining everything and when I’m watching pre-game, I’m like, ‘Hey, that’s a good sign.’ Then in the game we get happy feet. It’s a young team and it’s a long season.
“As long as we keep improving, I’m good with it. It’s just experience. It’s a hard place to play. We didn’t quit and they won’t quit, and that’s what I like.”
Crawford hosts Western Reserve Monday, while Northmor entertains Crestline Friday in non-league action.
In the junior varsity tilt the Lady Eagles got 10 points from Camryn Powers and 8 from Carley Zender in a 36-6 win. Madi See scored 3 for the Lady Knights.
Box score
Northmor 3 7 7 7 — 24
Colonel Crawford 18 7 12 5 — 42
Northmor (0-1): Shots 8-29; 3-pt. shots 2-8 (Shelby Cooper, Alexis See); Free throws 6-11; Rebounds 18 (Ryann Brinkman 6); Turnovers 18. Scoring: Madison Simpson 0 2 2, Shelby Cooper 2 0 5, Ryann Brinkman 4 1 9, Alexis See 1 2 5, Reagan See 1 1 3.
Colonel Crawford (1-0): Shots 14-33; 3-pt. shots 4-10 (Mira Holt, Allison Weithman, Lexi Rush, Lynae McKibben); Free throws 10-16; Rebounds 19 (Gabby Roston 5); Turnovers 15. Scoring: Gabby Roston 0 2 2, Mira Holt 5 5 16, Allison Weithman 3 1 8, Robin Ehmann 2 0 4, Lexi Rush 1 0 3, Ayla McKibben 1 0 2, Lynae McKibben 2 2 7.
JV: Colonel Crawford 36-6.