LORAIN — A pair of teams that had to replace a lot of talent from fine 2008-09 seasons kicked off the Lorain County girls basketball season Friday night at the Shot Palace.

It wasn’t surprising — considering the history of the Admiral King and Keystone programs, coupled with the teams’ collective inexperience — that the game came down to the final possession.

Keystone had the ball for the last 13 seconds of the game, but great defense by the Admirals prevented the Wildcats from getting a shot off before the buzzer, allowing King to escape with a 43-41 non-conference victory in the opening game of the 11th annual Lorain County Holiday Classic.

“It’s nice to pull that one out at the end,” Admirals coach Cheryl Bansek said. “That’s our trademark, our bread and butter — our full-court press. Surprisingly, we were really good in our half-court defense, too. That kind of shocked us. I guess, in Year 4 (of my time here), it’s finally starting to come together.

“I’m very pleased. This is a young group, which includes a junior that’s never played before and a senior that’s never played before. So, for these girls to come out and deal with this adversity and pull it out in the end, I’m pleased. That takes mental toughness.”

The Admirals have five sophomores and one freshman on their varsity roster, while the Wildcats have six sophomores. The result was a turnover-plagued game — Keystone had 28, while King finished with 26 — but the teams only combined to go to the free throw line seven times — King only once, in the final minute of the game.

Keystone coach Scott Terry said his team’s turnovers played a big role in the final outcome.

“Both us and Admiral King are in transition years,” he said. “We both lost a lot of scoring, and that was pretty evident tonight. But, like I told the girls, you’re not going to turn the ball over 28 times and win very many ballgames like that. There were a lot of quick decisions without evaluating where the defense was at, and the problem was our turnovers resulted in their layups.

“When we forced Admiral King to run a half-court offense, we did a great job. But they just scored too many transition points off of our turnovers, and I think that was the difference in the basketball game.”

Turnovers certainly played a key role in Admiral King’s comeback. Trailing by five, 32-27, at the start of the fourth quarter, the Admirals forced three quick Keystone miscues that all resulted in layups by senior Sheral Robinson, junior Tiara Ammons and freshman Alexandria Harris, respectively, in the span of a 90 seconds.

That gave the Admirals a 33-32 lead that kick-started a wild fourth quarter that included nine lead changes.

“I said to the girls before that, ‘You will win this game if you turn it up a notch and press like I know you can press,’” Bansek said. “They all looked at each other and said, ‘We’re gonna do this. We can win this.’ That speaks for itself.”

Added Terry: “Again, it came down to the turnovers. We just kind of shot ourselves in the foot with those. We’ve got some young kids out there playing, so they got their feet wet tonight. Hopefully, we learn from those mental mistakes and just get better.”

The two teams answered each other bucket for bucket after King took the 33-32 lead over the next three minutes of play. A layup by sophomore Madison Stoyka off of a steal by Robinson with 3:06 remaining gave King a 39-38 lead, and a five-footer by Ammons on its next possession made it a three-point lead.

“It felt really good, especially with not playing for half the year,” said Ammons, who missed most of last season but tied for high honors with 10 points Friday. “I feel like I got better since last season, and I feel like this did wonders for our confidence as a team, playing the way we did tonight.”

Keystone answered with a Becky Nielsen 3-pointer — her second of the evening — to tie the score 41-41 with 2:08 remaining.

King regained the lead on its next possession when Jade Blair, who only scored four points in the game, hit a runner in short range with 1:12 remaining, which proved to be the game-winning bucket.

Keystone had three more possessions before the clock ran out. The first resulted in a turnover. The second resulted in missed 3-point attempts by Nielsen and Emily Nagy and the third was the final possession.

King, meanwhile, had a traveling violation with 46.7 seconds remaining, and Harris missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 21.4 seconds remaining, which set up the final moments.

Harris, making her varsity debut, lived up to her preseason hype. The 6-foot-3 freshman had a double-double, scoring 10 points and pulling down a game-high 16 rebounds, to lead King.

“It’s a different level (than I was used to),” Harris said. “It’s faster paced, but it’s great. I played with all of them during the summer, though, so it didn’t take long for me to get used to it.

“It’s kind of a relief to get this first game finished. I think the rest of the games are going to feel a little bit easier, now that I’m not so nervous anymore.”

Bansek couldn’t say enough about the play of Harris.

“Alex has been around the program for the last three years,” she said. “She’s a gym rat. She’s witnessed everything that we do that entire time. She has the biggest growth window of any player I’ve ever worked with.

“I thought she could have gotten more (foul) calls that went in her favor, and that she got beat up a bit on the inside. But, in the process, she showed some great mental toughness. She’s a wonderful girl.”

King led, 10-9, after the first quarter, but Keystone tied it at halftime, 19-19.

The Admirals advance to the championship game of the Lorain County Holiday Classic tonight at 7:30 p.m. against Elyria. Keystone will play Elyria Catholic in the consolation game, beginning at 6 p.m.

Contact Dan Gilles at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

---

Print this story
Report an innappropriate comment

---

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. If you aren't already registered, click here.
If you are registered, click here to log in.
Need help? Email Us.