Infignos Media - Donoho rattles Lady Cardinals early, wins area title

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Donoho rattles Lady Cardinals early, wins area title

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Sacred Heart’s first four offensive possessions typified what plagued it in a 48-36 loss to top-seeded Donoho in the final of the AHSAA Class 1A, Area 10 girls basketball tournament Saturday night.

The Lady Cardinals had trouble getting the ball across halfcourt against the Lady Falcons’ full-court zone defense. Donoho stole Sacred Heart’s first attempt at an inbounds pass. The second time they tried to inbound the ball, the Lady Cardinals couldn’t find anyone open and were whistled for a five-second violation.

On their third and fourth possessions, they managed to get it to the other end, only to dribble the ball out of bounds and turn the ball over on a traveling violation while being flanked by Lady Falcons.

“We knew they were going to come out and pressure us and we turned the ball over,” Sacred Heart coach Robbie Morrison said. “We never settled ourselves down.”

It was all a part of Donoho coach Shannon Felder’s plan against a team they’d only beaten by an average of eight points in two regular-season meetings.

“We really wanted to get in there, build an early lead by putting pressure on them without getting into foul trouble and we were able to do that. We knew it’d be a tough game.”

Donoho outscored Sacred Heart 10-2 in the first 3:26 of the game. The Lady Falcons led 16-9 after one and never allowed their lead to dip below five at any point in the contest.

Donoho junior guard Anna Turner was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player after scoring a game-high 18 points, including four 3-pointers to guide her team to the title.

“It was a good night for shooting,” Turner said.

“Coach told me to shoot it, I listened and they went in for me tonight.”

Turner supplied all of her team’s offense in the third quarter, nailing two from deep to give the Lady Falcons a 33-19 advantage,heading into the fourth.

The Lady Falcons, who improved their record to 15-8 with the victory, will face Area 11 runner-up Gaston in the sub-regional round Thursday. Sacred Heart (11-12) will travel to defending Northeast Regional champion Ragland, the Area 11 champions.

Ragland defeated Gaston 55-42 to earn the right to host.

Sacred Heart’s best spurt came at the start of the fourth quarter when it went with a younger lineup. The Lady Cardinals scored seven unanswered points in 42 seconds to trim their deficit to seven at 33-26 with 7:18 to play.

“We knew they could do it,” Morrison said of her reserves. “They just hadn’t been in there to do it.”

Felder called a timeout to rally his troops and they responded resoundingly, going on an 11-0 run out of the break to go up 44-33 and regain control of the game for good.

“They jumped on us,” Turner said. “We knew we had to get it together to win the game and we did.”

Rachel Matson added 10 points off the bench for Donoho.

Blessing Dunn was Sacred Hearts’ top scorer with 11.

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