Lady Hawks Upset Bowling Green For Championship Hardware
The Clopton Lady Hawks frustrated top seeded Bowling Green to repeat as Bowling Green Tournament Champions with an astounding 60-30 win to cap the tournament on Friday night.
The most suprising element of the Clopton defensive effort was the lack of a full court press, a staple in the Lady Hawks defensive aresnal.
The Lady Hawks started hot, outscoring Bowling Green 20-6 over the first eight minutes.
Caragan Lockard, Jillian Lockard and Kaitlyn Kuntz all scored six points in the first quarter to set the offensive tone.
The Lady Bobcats showed life in the second quarter with a three pointer from Madeline Norton and baskets from three other Lady Cats.
Bowling Green was still outscored 14-9 in the quarter as the Lady Hawks took a 34-15 lead to the half.
As the lights came back on, the Lady Hawks stayed hot with five more points from Kuntz and a three off the bench from Allison Hunter.
Community State Bank TribCast Player of the Game and All-Tournament team member Calynn Lockard netted six points in the fourth quarter to finish the night with nineteen points as Clopton initiated a running clock in the final minutes.
Tournament MVP Kaitlyn Kuntz finished the Championship with eleven points and double digit steals to fuel the defensive effort.
Jillian Lockard also reached double figures in the finals with twelve points for Clopton.
The Hawks didn’t allow a single Bobcat to reach double figure scoring as All-Tournament team members Gabi Deters and Katelynn Charlton were held to nine and four points respectively for Bowling Green.
Coach Deaven Streed said the championship game was one of the most fun she’s ever been a part of.
“All the girls were very eager to play and I felt like every single one of my girls contributed in one way or another. I was extremely proud of my bench leadership, especially in Allison Hunter who kept all the girls pumped up and motivated the entire game all while staying ready to play when I put her in the game,” she remarked. “We worked on a game plan on Thursday and I feel like my girls executed it extremely well. Calynn Lockard stepped up big on the inside throughout the tournament, which is something that we have emphasized a need to do. We had terrific defensive efforts from Kaitlyn Kuntz and Maya Street, asking them to shut down other teams’ strong guards. Jillian Lockard did a great job for us as she was a strong outside and inside offensive threat throughout the tournament. Lastly, Caragan Lockard is stepping up big as a freshman doing the little things through offensive rebounding and using her body to create gaps and opportunities for us on the offensive end.”
Streed said they are excited with the outcome, but not satisfied.
“We proved a lot to ourselves and are looking forward for more opportunities to improve as we face some very competitive teams in the last few weeks of season going into district play.”
Clopton
The Lady Hawks upset (2) North Callaway in the championship semifinal on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 37-21.
North Callaway’s leading scorer Kyla Bertschinger went down with a knee injury early in the game. Clopton jumped out to the early lead, holding the Lady T-Birds to just two points as Kaitlyn Kuntz knocked down five, Caragan Lockard and Jillian Lockard each had four and Maya Street contributed two.
Calynn Lockard led the way with 11 points, Kuntz scored nine, Jillian Lockard had seven, Caragan Lockard finished with six and Street had four.
Bowling Green
The (4) Elsberry Indians gave Bowling Green a run for their money in the championship semifinal. The game was back and forth and Elsberry led through much of the game, but the defense stepped up in the final quarter to hold Elsberry scoreless. The Lady Cats got buckets from Gabi Deters and Caitlin Bilhartz. Deters also went 3-4 from the free throw line and KateLynn Charlton added two from the charity stripe.
The Lady Cats won 26-23 to advance to the championship game. Deters led with 12 points, KateLynn Charlton scored eight and Madeline Norton, Kinley Charlton and Caitlin Bilhartz each had two.
Bowling Green opened the tournament with a huge win over (8) Winfield on Monday.
All 22 games of the Bowling Green Tournament were featured on TribCast and can be accessed in the archive along with photo highlights from the week at www.thepeoplestribune.com.
