by HUDSON, Ohio– No practice Tuesday afternoon seemed to play a factor in the slow start to the game for Hudson on Wednesday night.
Once they could lock in and play the way they’d been practicing all year, coach Dennis Lawler liked his team’s chances of a win.
“I thought the second quarter on we kind of played our game, that’s how we play all the time,” Lawler explained. “We’re trying to go from good shots to great shots all the time and I thought they did a really good job of handling the ball when they had to.”
Both teams struggled to find a rhythm early on Wednesday night. However, Ashli Pearson was able to end the first quarter strong for the Lady Explorers. She knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to give her team an early 7-4 lead.
That helped kickstart a run that allowed her team to start to take control of the game throughout the first half. After they led 9-6 following the first quarter, the size and speed of the Lady Explorers became a little too much to overcome for the Lady Blue Devils.
A 3-point lead swiftly turned into a double-digit lead for Dennis Lawler’s team. They started to develop their outside shot more consistently coupled with fast break points that left the Lady Blue Devils looking for answers.
Erin McCormick, Pearson and Paige Sutton headlined a second quarter where the Lady Explorers held a 16-5 scoring advantage to take a 25-11 lead into halftime.
Once the outside shots were able to fall more consistently for Lawler’s team, that opened up Sutton to use her length for easy buckets near the rim.
“I want them to shoot it, I have all the confidence in every single one of them to make those shots,” Lawler said about his team’s outside shooting.
A quick 4-0 run to open up the second half saw the Lady Blue Devils with momentum in their favor. Point guard Rae Pooler became more assertive with the ball in her hands, forcing contact near the rim. She helped get her team within eight, 27-19 with five minutes left in the third quarter.
After forcing Lawler to call a timeout, that seemed to help settle down his team. For the next three minutes of the third quarter, the Lady Explorers went on a 7-0 run concluded with an and-one from Pearson.
After three quarters, the Lady Explorer lead was back up to thirteen points.
Pooler fouled out within the first two minutes of the fourth quarter and once she went to the bench, the Lady Blue Devils struggled offensively. They were outscored 12-0 in the next four minutes of the quarter, which helped secure the Lady Explorers a win Wednesday night.
“We’re deep. We’re playing 7, 8, 9, and even 10 deep and there is not that much drop off so that’s where our advantage is.”
During the win, Ashli Pearson paced her team with a career-high 16 points. It started with
“I came out of the game shooting threes and I was hot today so I kept shooting,” Pearson said with a smile on her face.
Erin McCormick had 11 points followed by nine points from Paige Sutton.
For Tallmadge, Pooler paced her team with 11 points followed by 8 points from Traymia Agnewel.
