Girls basketball: Norton pounces on out-of-sync Cloverleaf

NORTON — Missing leading scorer and point guard Evie Barth and another starter due to illness in addition to coming off a 10-day break, the Cloverleaf girls basketball team looked out of sorts in a 52-26 Metro Athletic Conference loss to rival Norton on Wednesday night. The Panthers (4-8, 4-2) scored the first 16 points and led 18-2 after the first quarter, with the only points for the Colts (9-2, 3-2) coming on a steal and layup by sophomore Makinsey Bayer with two minutes left. "We've watched them play against zones a lot, so we thought maybe the zone would work," Cloverleaf coach John Carmigiano said. "They just got a lot of offensive rebounds out of it early, and their shots were falling and ours weren't." Through its first 10 games, Cloverleaf had averaged 60 points. Its lowest output was 43 points in a loss to Field on Dec. 20. The Colts scored eight points in the second quarter Wednesday but then just five points in the third before scoring 11 in the final eight minutes. They never trailed by fewer than 20 points in the fourth. "We're used to getting the ball out and running, and they did a good job of limiting that," Carmigiano said. "We had just a lot of full-court dead balls where we had to deal with their full-court man, so it kind of slowed our pace down, and we could never quite get the game to go be played our way." Cloverleaf was without Barth, who leads the team with 15.8 points per game. Starting center Merrin Crow also missed the game. "It was weird on the floor," said Cloverleaf senior guard Saige Foky, who led the Colts with nine points. "It felt like we were missing a really important puzzle piece to our team (without Barth). We had people step up today, pulled up from our JV team and people who usually are like our sixth man, they started today. They did a great job. So proud of them." Emma Hibler had six points and a team-high six rebounds for the Colts, Kayla Shook scored four points, Kendall Seiwerth had three and Mackenzie Seiwerth and Bayer each scored two. Olivia Farrell knocked down three 3-pointers for Norton and led all scorers with 13 points, while Dakota Graham added 11. The Colts had not played since a 57-52 win over Holy Name in the Joe Tait Classic on Dec. 28 because their game against Woodridge was postponed due to snow. "It was disappointing last week when we didn't get to play Woodridge," Carmigiano said. "And then you have all the holidays and everything, and with a long break, it definitely showed that we couldn't get back in the exact flow we wanted." It won't get any easier for the Colts later this week, as they host Streetsboro (8-2, 6-0) on Friday night. The Comets feature 6-foot-3 Illinois commit Naomi Benson. "We're not a very tall team, so we have to figure out a way to rebound the basketball," Carmigiano said. "We'll be concentrating and focusing on limiting the amount of shots and trying to get that first rebound." Contact Ryan Isley at sports@medina-gazette.com. Norton 52, Cloverleaf 26 CLOVERLEAF &emsp;&emsp; 2 8 5 11 — 26 NORTON &emsp;&emsp; &emsp;&emsp;18 9 9 14 — 52 Cloverleaf — Emma Hibler 2-2-6, Saige Foky 3-2-9, Makinsey Bayer 1-0-2, Mackenzie Seiwerth 1-0-2, Kayla Shook 2-0-4, Madi Young 0-0-0, Kendall Seiwerth 1-1-3, Lydia Fike 0-0-0, Cameron Todd 0-0-0, Addie Evans 0-0-0, Jayce Kreider 0-0-0, Selena Velez 0-0-0. TOTALS: 10-5-26. Norton — Dakota Graham 4-2-11, Kenzie Tatkan 1-0-2, Addie Dobbins 3-1-7, Saoirse Donley 0-2-2, Alivia Goff 2-0-4, Brooke Bowman 1-0-2, Olivia Farrell 5-0-13, Riley Booth 0-1-1, Haley Sanderson 4-0-8, Juliana Peters 1-0-2, Natalie Kovein 0-0-0, Paige Smelser 0-0-0. TOTALS: 21-6-52. 3-point goals — Foky, Farrell 3, Graham, Rebounds — Cloverleaf 16 (Hibler 6), Norton 24 (Sanderson 5, Tatka 5). Assists — Cloverleaf 2 (Young 2), Norton 13 (Graham 5). Records — Cloverleaf (9-2, 3-2), Norton (4-8, 4-2). Junior varsity — Cloverleaf 34, Norton 26 (C: K. Seiwerth, Bayer 8).