HOLMES TOWNSHIP — On a night when the Buckeye Central Buckettes needed their big three, the players came through.
Guards Claudia Pifher and Taylor Ratliff and post Lexi Evak combined for 45 points as the Buckettes held off a late-charging Wynford squad, 56-49, Tuesday night at W.R. Donnenwirth Gymnasium.
With the win, BC improved to 1-0 in the Northern 10 Conference, 1-1 overall, while the Lady Royals are 0-1 and 2-2.
Pifher paced the Buckettes with 18 points and Evak finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Ratliff added 13 points.
“Lexi Evak played a real nice game for us tonight,” Buckeye Central coach Abram Kaple said. “We needed her to be the best post player on the floor tonight on the offensive end and take the pressure off Taylor and Claudia and (Pifher and Ratliff) did what we expect them to do every night.
“They never come off the floor and do the bulk of our ball-handling,” Kaple added. “So, it was key to have that. Ally Green had a nice game as well. Put all that together and that equals success.”
Wynford coach Amy Taylor-Sheldon said that, while her team gives great effort every night, she did not think her team did a good job denying the BC stars.
“I thought their girls worked incredibly hard to get their own shots, but their supporting cast really stepped up and hit some big shots. You try to pick your poison,” Taylor-Sheldon said.
“I don’t want their three best players to beat us. I want to be able to say that we had some stops and did our best. It takes team defense to stop them but for us, there were too many highs and too many lows.”
The Buckettes never trailed again after taking a 12-8 lead on a Kendra Ackerman three with 3:07 left in the second period. From there, BC held a 21-10 lead at the half.
But the Lady Royals, led by the strong post play of sophomores Savannah Tobias and Averi McMillan, came storming back in the second half, cutting the BC lead to four twice in the third period on two Tobias buckets.
Wynford actually trimmed the lead to 41-38 with 3:35 left on a McMillan lay-up before BC’s Pifher dropped a 3. From there, Ratliff added a three-point play and Evak added a bucket to hold off the Royals.
Kaple said his team’s defense was better tonight than it was against Willard.
We had a little more time to prep,” Kaple said. “In the second half, they really tried to go into the post and that’s something we’ll have to address but I was pleased with the way we played and our effort and the grit that we showed.
“Wynford likes to shoot a lot of 3s and with a lot of 3s comes a lot of long rebounds,” Kaple added. “Not only do you have to rebound under the basket, but our guards have to go rebound, too.”
McMillan led Wynford with 12 points and guard Rylee Alspach and Tobias added 11 each.
“In the first half, we didn’t feed the post and we’re going to be a team that lives and dies by the 3,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “We have some great three-point shooters and tonight we died by it. We need to do a better job of getting our shooters open and getting opportunities.
“We would make some runs, but we couldn’t get over the hump.”
The Buckettes didn’t get as many opportunities but hit 19 of 32 shots from the floor. Wynford also dropped 19 shots in 51 tries.
“We wanted to be there on the catch and limit their three-point opportunities and, for the most part, we did,” Kaple said.
“We hit timely 3s. We made the timely pass and went from a good look to a great one. We feel that we have weapons from the perimeter and that’s what we need.”
Taylor-Sheldon felt that her team needs to be more consistent.
“We need to be balanced inside and out and I thought our post players played well,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “We were a little bit disproportionate with that, but they took us out of some of the things we wanted to do.
“I’m disappointed and the kids are disappointed but there is still a lot of season left and we have to be ready.”
Wynford won the jayvee game, 34-17. Grace Stuckey and Katie Wagner led the Lady Royals with seven points. Lauren Mann paced BC with six.
Box score
Buckeye Central 6 15 17 18 — 56
Wynford 6 4 17 22 — 49
Buckeye Central (1-1, 1-0 N10): Shots 19-32; 3-pt. shots 7-19 (Taylor Ratliff 2, Claudia Pifher 2, Kendra Ackerman, Ally Green, Ryley Kantzer); Free throws 11-17; Rebounds 32 (Lexi Evak 13); Turnovers 17. Scoring: Kendra Ackerman 1 0 3, Claudia Pifher 5 6 18, Ally Green 2 0 5, Taylor Ratliff 5 1 13, Ryley Kantzer 1 0 3, Lexi Evak 5 4 14.
Wynford (2-2, 0-1 N10): Shots 19-51; 3-pt. shots 3-17 (Mia Leuthold 3); Free throws 8-10; Rebounds 20; Turnovers 8. Scoring: Rylee Alspach 4 3 11, Mia Leuthold 3 0 9, Briley Pollock 2 0 4, Savannah Tobias 5 1 11, Averi McMillan 4 4 12, Lyndie Williams 1 0 2.
JV: Wynford 34-17.