by The Cleveland Basketball Classic opened up with a dominant Medina 66-47 victory over a game River squad today at BW. The Bees were led by the dynamic Olivia Klanac with 35 points in an impressive effort. She recently became the all-time leading scorer in Medina girls basketball history.
It was a full effort from the Bees today as they were aided with14 points by Addy Shook and 6 from Molly Glibert. Also scoring for the Bees was Abby Dress with 5, Gillian Kurka and Bri Kudley.
Leading the Pirates was Nora Bruder with 12 while Rori Vesy and Liz Lang each had 8. Bridget Carlin and Emma Vladescu each had 5, as did Olivia Dewey. Rounding out the scoring for the Pirates was Claudia Roche with 4.
Baskets were falling for both teams in the first as the Bees raced out to a 20-16 lead as both teams scorched the nets. The Bees had led 9-8 early, thanks in part to 7 quick points from Olivia Klanac who had 9 in the quarter. During that same stretch Liz Lang had 6 for the Pirates. The problem for River was that Lang picked up her second foul shortly after that and had to sit the remainder of the quarter.
This allowed the Bees to score with ease before the Pirates made a few adjustments. Big threes by Emma Vladescu and Claudia Roche kept it close for the Pirates. As mentioned, the Bees led 20-16 after one as Klanac led all scorers with 9 after one.
The second quarter opened up with back to back three balls from Abby Dress and Klanac to hand the Bees their first double digit lead of the game at 26-16. The Bees just kept scoring and ran the lead out to 31-16 before a Rori Vesy three ball stopped the bleeding at 31-19. She nailed another one shortly after, to cut it back to single digits at 31-22. Then, a Bridget Carlin three for the Pirates moved it to 31-25. After a Roche foul shot made it 31-26, Klanac’s third three of the quarter stopped the run. The Bees went on to lead at half by a score of 38-26 with 7 straight points.
The Pirates started the second half on fire with 10 straight points from Dewey, Bruder and Vesy to cut the lead back down to 2, at 38-36 exactly four minutes in. Klanac stopped that with 4 quick points. Shortly after an Addy Shook three ball increased the Bee lead to 45-38, before five straight points from Klanac ran it back out to 50-38 before closing out the third quarter ahead 51-40.
A great effort from Nora Bruder with 7 was not enough to make it close again as the Bees ran away with the win.
Medina Bees head coach Karen Kase had this to say about the Bees early effort, “We knew we needed energy today and multiple efforts, those were two keys on our scouting report because River was the best team we faced this year. They are fundamentally sound and well coached, so we knew it was going to be a challenge.”
