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And round one goes to Chagrin Falls.
The Tigers girls basketball team opened Chagrin Valley Conference Chagrin Division play with a, 44-32, victory over rival Kenston Friday night at Kenston High School.
The two teams have owned the CVC for several years now, so the two meetings they have each year go a long way toward deciding who is Chagrin Division champions.
The Tigers, who are defending champions, took an important step toward the goal of winning a division title with their road victory following an impressive victory over Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin to start the season. The two teams shared the division two years ago.
Chagrin Falls coach Brittany And-erson was very pleased after the game.
“It feels good,” Anderson said. “Still, we have work to do. We haven’t reached out potential. We want to keep the ball rolling.”
Chagrin Falls (2-0, 1-0) started strong as the Tigers owned the first quarter. When the first 8 minutes of the game were over the Tigers enjoyed a 14-4 lead as Chagrin Falls never trailed during the contest.
“We knew we had to get momentum going right away, a quick start,” Anderson said. “We wanted the tempo set for us.”
Kenston coach Kevin Hinkle said falling behind early made things hard on the Bombers.
“Early mistakes got us behind,” Hinkle said. “When you play catch up it wears you down a little. It was up hill all game.”
Ball control was a huge factor in the first quarter as the Tigers forced six Kenston turnovers, but had none of their own. For the game, Chagrin Falls was excellent with the basketball as the Tigers finished with seven turnovers. After the first quarter, the Bombers did very well too. They had six in the first quarter, but only six more for the game.
“This is huge,” Anderson said. “To come into this gym, to be able to handle it (the basketball) and take care of it is huge. It’s great team chemistry.”
One Tiger that had a big contribution, but may not have been noticed as much if a fan just looks at the statistics was Brianna Baker. She finished with eight points, three rebounds and three assists to go along with stellar defense.
“We got a lot out of her last season,” Anderson said. “She really worked on her game.”
Baker was almost at a loss of words for how she felt about winning at Kenston.
“Crazy. It feels not real almost,” Baker said. “They are great competition to judge how we do this year.
“This is a huge gym, bigger then we’re used to. But we knew what we had to do.”
Of course, the Bombers answered as they started the second quarter on a 7-0 run to pull within 14-11. That run was led by defense as Chagrin Falls didn’t score in the second quarter until nearly 4 minutes elapsed. However, that three-point deficit was the closest Kenston (0-2, 0-1) got to Chagrin Falls.
The Tigers settled down and took a 25-19 lead into halftime.
Next, the Tigers started the second half hot as well as they scored the first eight points of the third quarter to push that lead out to 33-19. The Bombers didn’t score in the second half until there was just 1:32 left in the third quarter as Julie Hajdu scored on a driving layup. Still, that was one of just two field goals by the Bombers in the third quarter as they managed just four points. Chagrin Falls led, 34-23, at the end of the third quarter.
Hinkle said the Bombers talked about coming out strong to start the second half.
“Unfortunately, they stretched it out to double digits,” Hinkle said.
Michigan recruit Hallie Thome (6-foot-5) led Chagrin Falls with a game-high 16 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots. Sister Hannah Thome, an Ohio recruit, was next with 15 points, three rebounds, three steals and three assists. Fellow Tiger Kelly Dishong had four points and a game-high six assists.
“I thought we did a really good job of ball movement,” Baker said. “They focused on Hallie so much. We worked really, really well together.”
Michaela Barnes paced the Bombers with 14 points. Half came in the fourth quarter when Kenston was trying to mount a comeback. No other Bomber had more then four points.
“She is very fast,” Baker said of Barnes. “We all did a good job of containing her.”
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