GIRLS HOOPS: Plymouth rallies to beat St. Paul

The Plymouth Big Red shook off a sluggish first quarter and went on to defeat the St. Paul Lady Flyers 73-67 in Firelands Conference girls’ basketball play Tuesday night at the convocation center.
Plymouth improved its season mark to 8-2 overall and 5-1 in the FC, while St. Paul dropped to 5-5 and 4-4.
The first quarter was completely dominated by the Lady Flyers as the home team raced out to a 23-7 lead after one.
But in the second period, the Big Red started clawing their way back, outscoring St. Paul, 19-9.
The third was more of the same as Plymouth held a 21-10 scoring edge.
The fourth was a shoot-out that saw the Big Red put up 26 points to 25 for the Lady Flyers.
Plymouth coach Scott Speicher talked about the character of the Big Red.
“We don’t panic,” he said. “St. Paul is a quality team.”
Good things started to happen for Plymouth when post players Nicole Lyons and Haley Goth began crashing the boards.
Lyons finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds, while Goth added 10 points and 12 boards.
“That was huge for us,” Speicher said. “We need that from our post game.”
The Big Red also cashed in at the free-throw line, making 23-of-27.
“Those were some big free throws we converted down the stretch,” Speicher said.
Bre McVey and Sarah Shirey each scored 21 points for Plymouth.
“Bre is going to do what she does,” Speicher said. “And Sarah has been doing that for us all year. But we want to make this a team effort. We want balanced scoring across the board.”
The Big Red made 23-of-52 action shots, grabbed 27 total rebounds and had 11 turnovers.
The Plymouth girls have been playing with a heavy heart since the death of junior Abby Finnegan in December.
“We’re bouncing back, working hard coping with the loss,” Speicher said. “The kids as a team want to do everything in her honor.”
The Lady Flyers were led by Taylor Brown’s 20 points.
Audrey Badovick added 15 points and Megan Stein chipped in 13.
Brown almost single-handedly kept St. Paul in the game in the second half, knocking down four straight triples at one point.
Lady Flyers coach Jeremy Bliss talked about Tuesday’s contest.
“We got away from pushing the ball after the first quarter,” he said. “We’ll learn our lesson from that. That’s a growing thing.
“We played a heckuva team tonight,” Bliss added. “McVey and Shirey got to the basket and the two posts would rebound and finish. When they made their run we didn’t handle it. We were sort of shell-shocked. The next time we’ll play them better. We came out and got that lead in the first quarter and said, wow, and sat back.”
The Lady Flyers were 27-of-53 from the floor, which included 6-of-12 three-pointers. St. Paul hit 7-of-12 free throws.
Plymouth won the rebounding battle, 27-20.
St. Paul won the reserve game, 48-26. Erin Kramer scored 11 points and Sabrina Schaffer added 10. Plymouth’s Morgan Baker had 10 points.
The Lady Flyers are home to Western Reserve on Thursday, while Plymouth goes to Monroeville the same night.


Boxscores
Varsity
Plymouth 73
Shirey 6-7-21, Lyons 3-4-10, Jacobs 1-2-4, McVey 7-6-21, Goth 3-4-10, Miller 3-0-7. Totals 23-23-73.
St. Paul 67
Kaylee Bundschuh 2-0-5, Badovick 6-3-15, Stein 6-1-13, Brown 7-0-20, Fritz 2-3-7, Spence 1-0-2, Kirsten Bundschuh, 3-0-6. Totals 27-7-67.
Plymouth    7    19    21    26    —    73
St. Paul    23    9    10    25    —    67

Reserve
Plymouth 26
Taylor 3-1-7, Hummel 1-0-2, Baker 5-0-11, Butcher 0-2-2, Bolen 1-0-2, Mowry 0-2-2. Totals 10-5-26.
St. Paul 48
Weisenberger 2-1-5, Newcomer 1-0-2, Spence 3-0-6, Draime 3-0-6, Kramer 5-1-11, Fitzgerald 4-0-8, Schaffer 5-0-10. Totals 23-2-48.
Plymouth    6    0    7    13    —    26
St. Paul    10    14    9    15    —    48