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Lady Cats Down DuBois Central Catholic In Senior Night (02/13/20)

(Photo by Matt Lerch) Lady Cat Seniors, KK Girvan and Kait Constantino with their parents (L-R) Tracy and Nate Girvan and Dave and Kim Constantino

The Clarion Area Lady Cats downed visiting DuBois Central Catholic 53-35, on Senior Night, Wednesday (February 12th), in a non-conference match-up. And it seems very fitting that the Lady Cats two seniors, Kait Constantino and KK Girvan led the team in scoring, with 17 and twelve points respectively.

Before the clock started for the first period, the Lady Cardinals scored on a pair of free-throws, for a pre-game violation against Clarion and then got to inbound the ball, which they turned into another two points.

DCC ended up scoring the first eight points, before Jordy Best hit for a basket for Clarion’s first two points. A 6-0 Cardinals’ run had them up 14-2. But buckets by Girvan and Constantino closed the gap to 14-6 to end the quarter.

Clarion outscored DCC 14-9 in the second, and trailed just 23-20 at the half. Constantino and Noel Anthony scored four apiece in the quarter, with Girvan, Payton Simko and Bekah Ketner contributing two points apiece.

After Girvan scored on a put back, to open the third, Ketner hit a bucket at about 6:40, giving Clarion their first lead of the game 24-23. Up 31-29 late in the quarter, Constantino sandwiched a pair of free-throws, between a couple of two-point baskets, followed by a bucket by Noel Anthony, to give Clarion a ten point 39-29 cushion heading to the final stanza.

The Lady Cats outscored the Cardinals 14-6 in the final period, including the game’s final eight points, to win going away. Simko scored 5 points in the quarter, Girvan had 4, Best and Lopez scored two, and Ketner scored one.

In all, over the final three quarters, the Cats held the Lady Cardinals to just 21 points, while scoring forty-seven of their own, for the victory.

Simko finished with 7 points, Anthony had 6, Best 4, Ketner 5 and Lopez had two.

Shaylee Gulvas led the Cardinals with 15 points.

Commenting on his seniors, Clarion Coach Roger Walter said, “As far as tonight’s game, just good senior leadership; played hard and played intense in a game that was a battle for quite awhile.

“As far as (KK and Kait) as career players, they’ve been the face of Clarion for three or four years. And you know what you’re going to get every night. You’re going to get them hustling and playing hard. Being a team this year and even last year that’s dominated by guards, they’ve had very important roles on our team.”

And as for his team’s effort Coach Walter said, “Early we didn’t shoot well, we didn’t play well. It took us a few minutes to decide we wanted to be intense and we wanted to play hard. I stuck with the zone for the first half, even though I wasn’t completely satisfied with it. But I knew, ‘let’s come out in the third and go man, just like we did last night.’ (We) waited until the second half, threw something new in and see what I got. Once the intensity picked up, everything kind of took care of itself.”

The Lady Cats will now await the District 9 Playoff pairings.

(Thanks to Matt Lerch for the photo. Good game, Lady Cats!!!!)