BLUE DEVILS AVOID BOMBERS COMEBACK
By Ty Bartell
WINDHAM OH- In a thrilling and competitive night of basketball on the network, The Windham Bombers
girls basketball team had their season opening game at home where they hosted The McDonald Blue Devils. Windham, representatives of The Northeastern Athletic Conference (NAC) Stripes Division, opted for the early non-conference matchup with McDonald members of The Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference (MVAC) Scarlet Division.
The Blue Devils jumped out to an early advantage 14-7 after one quarter, propelled by two triples in the quarter, one by Gracie Callow and the other by Juliana Krumpak. The second quarter wound up being the lowest scoring of the game for both teams, with each squad scoring just 8 points each in the quarter with defense taking precedence. Drawing even in the frame allowed McDonald to hold onto their 7 point advantage heading to the locker room, up 22-15 at halftime.
At the start of the third quarter, it looked like Windham started to find their groove on offense; however, The Blue Devils maintained their lead through matching the scores of The Bombers, with McDonald leading 35-26 heading to the fourth and final quarter. It was bombs away from that point for Windham and the combination of Mariah Woods and Briah Daniel marched The Bombers right back into the game, eventually taking a fourth quarter lead! For most teams, losing the lead late is a tough pill to swallow, but McDonald still found a way to get it done, holding off Windham for the 45-42 win!
Big scorer of the night was McDonald’s Gracie Gallow who finished with 17 points to lead the game, while Cierra Shiley cleaned up the boards and locked down the post for The Blue Devils. But the Player of The Game performance goes to Juliana Krumpak who displayed an impressive amount of toughness, grit and courage to compile 15 timely points to help lead her team to victory!
Despite the loss, it was still a good night for a couple Bombers as well with Mariah Woods leading the team with 14 points, 7 of which came in the fourth. Also, Briah Daniel who had 12 points on the night with 9 of them coming in the final quarter. Windham (0-1) will look to get their first win of the season when they host Ashtabula St. John (0-0) on THursday, November 30th. Meanwhile, McDonald (2-1) will be in-action next against an opponent across The MVAC in The Grey Division when they host The Liberty Leopards (0-1) also on Thursday. Interviews with winning Head Coach Tony Matisi and Player of the Game Juliana Krumpak can be found below!
Be sure to stay tuned with YSN for complete season coverage of both The Windham Bombers and McDonald Blue Devils with live games, scores, stats, stories and more, exclusively on YSN!
