Defense leads Hornets to CVC victory

There are going to be nights that even the best basketball teams can’t find the basket on the offensive end of the court.

That’s where defense has to be a constant.

The Kirtland girls basketball team proved that point on Feb. 13 in its regular-season finale against CVC Valley rival Cuyahoga Heights.

The Hornets shot a chilly 30 percent (14 of 46) from the court against the host Redskins. But because of a ferocious performance on the defensive end of the floor, the Hornets ran away with a 36-19 victory to send themselves into postseason play on a high note.

Kirtland forced 21 turnovers, including a total of 16 in the pivotal second and third quarters, flustering the home team into short possessions.

The offense struggled, but the defense made sure the Hornets got out with the win.

“Defense is everything,” said Jenna Sayle. “You have to do defense well to win. Even when our shots aren’t falling sometimes, our defense gets us transition shots, which is huge.”

Coach Bob Bell agreed in regard to the emphasis on defense. He said his team was held 15 points beneath its season average — not a big surprise, he said, because Coach Al Martin’s Redskins always play good defense — but that his team made up for it with defensive pressure.

Kirtland (17-5, 12-2 CVC Valley) started its gamechanging run late in the third quarter when Lauren Lutz got a shot off a pass from Sayle, and then pulled down an offensive rebound for a putback for a 15-8 halftime lead.

Bell then implemented a trapping 1-3-1 defense in the third quarter that truly

put the game out of reach.

Grace Wolfe hit a post shot to start the third quarter, and then Lutz picked off a pass and went coastto-coast for a 20-8 lead.

Cuyahoga Heights never got the margin to single digits again.

“We saved that one until the second half,” Bell said of the Hornets’ 1-3-1 trap. “Our girls do a nice job of covering the floor on that.”

Sayle hit a shot to make it 22-8 before the Redskins got on the board on a 3 by Tori Santiago, which ended an 8-minute, 43-second offensive dry spell for Cuyahoga Heights going back to McKayla Spicer’s 3 in the second quarter.

“We struggle a lot scoring the ball, not just tonight,” Heights coach Al Martin said. “We struggled just to make the next pass tonight.”

That’s because Kirtland trapped whoever had the ball and defended the players one pass away from the ball-handler. If the ball wasn’t picked off in mid-air, the Hornets often forced tie-ups to give them the ball on alternate

possessions.

“Our traps on the press really worked well,” Sayle said “That got us up in the third quarter.”

Kirtland held Cuyahoga Heights to 6-of-36 (16 percent) shooting.

Santiago led her team with six points on two 3-pointers. Brooke Wilson had five points and a gamehigh 12 rebounds.

“I think we played really hard defensively,” Martin said of his team. “That was probably our best defensive performance of the year.”

Lutz (8 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals), Wolfe (6 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals) and Sayle (5 points, 9 rebounds) paced Kirtland.

Kirtland finishes the regular season on a high note. The Hornets only two league losses were to league champion Independence.

“We used to be be enemies with them,” Lutz said of Cuyahoga Heights. “Now we’re more like frenemies. It’s like a friendly rivalry when we play them.”