FITCH SURVIVES FOURTH QUARTER SCARE
AUSTINTOWN OH- In the first full week of games for girls basketball, The Austintown-Fitch Falcons hosted The Struthers Wildcats for a non-conference contest Wednesday night. The game opened up as a close contest after a quarter, with Struthers’ Emma Morris knocking down a pair of triples in the opening frame. Meanwhile, five different Falcons scored in the first eight minutes to hold an 11-10 lead after a quarter. Fitch would keep that same tempo into the second quarter, this time seven different Falcons scored a bucket, out-scoring Struthers 16-7 in the second and held a commanding 27-17 lead at halftime!
Out of the half, Fitch looked like they were set to put the game away early, once again winning a quarter over The Wildcats, this time 17-10 in the third to hold a 44-27 lead heading into the final quarter of regulation. Then, the fourth quarter became The Katelyn Kimble show when she scored 13 of her 15 points in the final quarter! Struthers would manage a comeback and battle within a bucket of Austintown. However, despite being out-scored 19-6 by Struthers in the fourth, Fitch would hold on with a clutch late-game rebound by Ayla Ray to clinch the 50-46 win over The Wildcats.
Katelyn Kimble would lead Struthers and the entire game in points with 15 on the night. Emma Morris was right behind her with 10 points on the night, while Ava Croyle scored 9 points to round out the Struthers big three in scoring. Austintown was highlighted with six girls scoring 7 or more points in the evening! Leading the way was Destanie McCullough with 9 points, followed by four Falcons scoring 8 points in Dasiyia Donlow, Sam Severn, Lannie Henning and Rachel Spalding. Rounding things out was Ayla Ray who finished with 7 points. With so many names putting up similar-like scoring numbers, our players of the game went to both Ayla Ray and Dasiyia Donlow for, not only their ability to score, but the rebounds they were able to secure to help lead their team to victory! Interviews with both of them as well as Fitch Head Coach Dan Horacek can be found below!
Fitch (2-1) will now look ahead to Saturday, December 2nd when they host Hathaway Brown (1-0) set for a 1:30 p.m. tip-off. Meanwhile, Struthers (0-2) will look to get on the winning side when they hit the road to battle Western Reserve (0-2) on Monday, December 4th with a 6:15 p.m. tip-off. Keep up-to-date with both The Struthers WIldcats and The Austintown-Fitch Falcons with live games, scores, stats, stories and more on YSN!
