Lady Cagers had no problem putting the heat on their crosstown rivals Lake Orion in the second half last Friday to come out with a 53-17 win in their home opener.
“Our defensive pressure gave Lake Orion some problems,” said Tim Wasilk, head coach for Clarkston Girls Varsity Basketball.
The Lady Wolves knew leading with the score 23-12 going into the third quarter wouldn’t mean anything if they didn’t step up their game for the next 16 minutes.
“Orion plays a pretty tough two-three zone,” said Wasilk. “It gave us some troubles in the first half but we adjusted and did a better job in the second half overall.”
Opening the third quarter junior Delaney Kenny scored on one of her two free throws.
Her next move came when she knocked the ball away from the Lady Dragons to teammate senior Anna Manilla.
Manilla hit the ground and passed the ball to senior Megan Hastings as Lake Orion closed in.
Hastings threw the ball to junior Erin Davernport to end the play with a basket. Freshman Erika Davernport added one more to put the score 28-12.
Lake Orion added one point from a free throw before Clarkston went on a nine point streak which went into the fourth quarter.
“We just wanted to wear them down and use our depth, man-to-man press and just be smart with our defense,” said Wasilk. “Then, our defense would hopefully create some offense to give us some easy baskets and they did.”
The Lady Wolves went on another streak this time for 11 points before Lake Orion scored on a basket.
Senior Christina Jokisch and Erika Davenport added five more points to end the game 53-17.
Jokisch led with 13 points and five rebounds.
“It was nice to have Christina back,” said Wasilk. “She just came back after a few weeks off. She had a really nice game and it was nice to see her hit some shots.”
Erika scored 10 points and eight rebounds and Kenny added nine points.
“Erika did a really nice job inside rebounding. All of our forwards did a nice job inside rebounding,” Wasilk added. “Erin did nice job defensively.”
Clarkston had six turnovers offensively and forced 18 turnovers on Lake Orion’s offense.
“We took some steps forward in this game. Our first game was a little sloppy,” Wasilk said about the season opener win over Davison, 47-32. “I thought this game with Lake Orion especially the second half we cleaned things up a little better.”
The Lady Wolves went on a 15-0 run in the second quarter and pulled away in the third quarter.
“They were a good team, competitive,” said Wasilk.
Kenny and senior Tori Trimmer led with ten points each against Davison.
The Lady Wolves head to Rochester Adams on Thursday and Pontiac next Tuesday.
“We hope to get better and gel with the new players,” said Wasilk. “We need to get better at communication on the floor.?
JV begins at 5:30 p.m., varsity follows.