Rangers finish regular season with strong win

Every good, focused team knows that what happened in the regular season matters little once the ball tips in a tournament game. While North doesn’t want to look back with a sectional matchup now direc t ly a head with Shaw, it sure gained some confidence. North capped off its regular season with a 52- 40 win over Mayfield, giv ing the Rangers seven wins in their last eight games. It’s hard to end the regular season, or a game, the last home one at that, on a better note than the Rang- ers did. Samantha Pirosko opened t he qua r t er on personal 6- 0 r un that included a rebound and an assist to Valerie Arnold for a 3-pointer. That put North ahead of Mayfield 45-33 after leading by two to open the fourth quarter. “I was impressed with how our younger girls, a freshman ( Allie Chlad) getting first extended varsity minutes, handled the Mayfield run,” North coach Paul Force said. “We made enough plays. Val Arnold had a big 3. Sam battled again, 32 more minutes for her. I’m proud of how we handled adversity. We have been down a starter the last few games. Before, we had an opportunity to point fingers and make excuses or make it come together, lean on each other and step up. We did tonight.” It lo oked as if Nor t h would put the game on ice in the third quarter after a five-point halftime lead and Mayfield making just t wo shots in the first quarter. Anaund a Lyonshad seven of her 12 points in the third quarter, helping the Rangers go ahead, 3124, with 2:03 remaining. Alexa Pasquale led Leah Nerone to the basket with a pass and finished through contact for Mayfield. She capped off the three-point play to bring the Wildcats within two. Pirosko broke up the run for Mayfield, but Pasquale ended the quarter with a well-timed basket to keep it a one-possession game. May f ield held a 1 3 -1 2 lead, thanks to Pasquale’s offensive rebound and putback in the second quart er. It was t he only lead the Wildcats had and the Rangers’ 9- 0 r un to star t the fourth put them in too deep of a hole to dig out of. “There’s no reason that winning the turnover battle and getting looks at the hoop, to lose the way we did,” Mayfield coach Ryan Looman sa id. “We challenged the way they’ve been working. The last two weeks are not going to cut it. It’s not the same work ethic we had early in the season and not the kind we expect. Basketball is something 34 out of the 700 girls (at Mayfield) get to do. Maybe they need to take that more seriously from here on out. That kind of effort is not going to get us anywhere. That’s on us as coaches to get them to and on the players as well.” May field ( 14 - 8 , 10 - 4 WRC) has eight days of f before hosting the winner of Euclid- Chardon in a sectional final. The Wildcats will hope for more sense of urgency and toughness in the playoffs. Nor t h (14 - 8, 7-7 WRC) controlled the rebounding battle decisively (47-15) to get the kind of offensive opportunities it succeeds in. “Without r ebounding, there’s no way for us to get up the second shots we did,” Lyons said. “If we don’t get rebounds, we can’t get out i n transition and get of f more easy shots. We picked it up on the defensive end,” Lyons added of the Rangers pulling away in the fourth quarter. “But the regular season is over now. It’s a whole new game going into the tournament.” Coach Forc e sa id t he key to the Rangers beginning to click as the season wound down was getting more contr ibutions f rom the team to create balance.