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Crean Lutheran’s Micaela Hanning drives against Sunny Hill’s Rianna Jones (No. 14) and Ayah Maaytah Tuesday night. (Photos courtesy Crean Lutheran Shutterbugs, Howard Lyon and John Luciano).
Crean Lutheran High School’s girls basketball team was missing one of its star players, senior forward Sydnee Norwood, who was out with an injury Tuesday night.
But the rest of the team picked up the slack for the Saints, who rolled to a 68-33 Crestview League victory over Sunny Hills at Crean Lutheran.
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Crean Lutheran (18-3 overall) remains atop the league with a 3-0 mark. Crean Lutheran was also missing key players Emma Goley and Savannah Brawley, who were out injured.
Norwood has been averaging about 20 points a game and was league MVP last year.
“We’ve been struggling starting strong and we finally started really good,” said Crean Lutheran Coach Kyle Rouse.
Crean Lutheran jumped out to a 33-21 halftime lead and extended the margin to 42-24 on a 3-pointer by Hewitt three minutes into the third quarter. The Saints led 55-27 after three quarters.
“Defensively, it was insane tonight, the scout was right and our players did such a good job executing it, they didn’t give them any breathing room,” Rouse said. “They rarely had any open shots, there were a couple that we dropped the ball on and we gave them some open lay-ups, but other than that, the stat is crazy, they had 21 points at half and ended up with 33, so we held them to 12 points in the second half.”
Crean Lutheran had a balanced effort led by Micaela Hanning, who had 16 points. Elise Randolph added 14 points, Jane Hewitt and Jordyn Norwood had 10 points each and Stacy Echtenkamp and Aubriana Salem had nine points each to lead the Saints.
Sunny Hills (14-9, 0-3) was led by Ayah Maaytah (12 points) and Allie Sexton (eight points).
“Just proud of the effort, I don’t think you could tell watching we only had seven because the energy was so high, the defensive intensity was so high and even our shooting percentage was crazy being tired, I’m super proud of them,” Rouse said.
Sydnee Norwood is expected back soon, the Saints coach said.
“I think we will be OK, we just got to keep everybody else healthy,” Rouse said. “No more injuries. I’m proud of their execution and we played 32 minutes today. We just got to stay dialed in and locked in and not overthink and not take things for granted. As long as do that, we’re pretty tough.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com