St. Vincent-St. Mary, Canfield advance to district final in Ohio girls basketball

St. Vincent-St. Mary andCanfield will face off on Saturday, March 2 for a spot in the regional tournament

UNIONTOWN, Ohio - OHSAA Division II girls basketball district play continued Wednesday night, including district semifinals in all four of the districts in the Barberton region.

At Lake High School, it was St. Vincent-St. Mary defeating Marlington 65-45 and Canfield defeating Salem 43-35. The two teams will face each other in the district final on Saturday night at Lake at 7:00 pm for a spot in the regional semifinals.

St. Vincent-St. Mary 65, Marlington 45

STVM head coach Carley Whitney had seen enough early on, calling a timeout less than four minutes into the game and her team trailing 7-0.

"Sometimes you need maybe just a little bit of a wake up call," Whitney said. "I thought we weren't making layups and we seemed a little out of sorts there for a couple of minutes. I had to get them back to what we do. Quit worrying about the missed layups, let's get back to our defense, let's get back to rotating and doing what we do and just get out of that space of what we're not doing and let's focus on what we are doing." 

The Fighting Irish listened, as they went on a 10-3 run to end the quarter and extended that to a 21-3 run when Erica King scored to give STVM a 21-10 lead early in the second quarter.

"It's really fun actually (to go on those runs) because when we just get going, it's just like we get going, it doesn't stop," King said. "Once we go, we we go and teams can't let us go." 

The run was started by the defense, which suffocated the Marlington offense and forced turnovers that became easy buckets for the Fighting Irish.

"We go off our defense," King said. "We try to make our defense into our offense and it just gives us energy. We get energy when we get stops, so that's why our defense is always so hard. And we always play hard."

Freshman Melania Cornute led the way in the second quarter for STVM, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers and scoring 12 of the team's 27 points in the period. She finished four 3-pointers and a team-high 20 points.

"She just has a knack for the ball," Whitney said. "She has the ability to score and create, she's very unselfish, she can do a lot of things that don't show her age. She plays older than what her report card says."

STVM (17-5) jumped out to a 41-18 lead early in the third quarter and looked poised to put the game on ice, but Marlington senior Chelsea Evanich put the Dukes on her back and went on a personal run of 13-3 to cut the STVM lead to 16, but it just wasn't enough. Evanich led all scorers with 31 points.

"She's a great player, I think she's a high school matchup nightmare," Whitney said.  "When you think you're taking something away, she's just so fluid with it. So you put a guard on her, she makes post move, you put a post on her, she draws you out you make her go left, she'll spin back."

After winning their two sectional games 75-5 and 98-8, this was the first time in two weeks that STVM has played a team who could give them competition early which could have contributed to the slow start. But at the end of the day, STVM got back to playing the way they play and were able to put the Dukes away.

"I think those are all excuses, but they're real," Whitney said. "You gotta play the game, man. You gotta figure out what you're made of. You have to fight through adversity. It might be a factor but I think that's an excuse. At some point you have to get back to what you do well and I think that's what we did today."

Cornute led three players in double figures for STVM, as junior guard Kendal Batchik knocked down four 3-pointers of her own and had 15 points and King scored 10. 

Erica King of St. Vincent-St. Mary takes a shot during warmups before a game against Ursuline on January 18, 2023 / Jeff Harwell, SBLive Sports

Canfield 43, Salem 35  

For the second straight season, Canfield went on a fourth quarter run to take the lead and knock Salem out of the playoffs in the district tournament.

The run on Wednesday night came in the form of seven straight points to start the fourth quarter after the two teams were tied 29-29 after three. 

It started with a basket by Camie Dill and then a 3-pointer by Cami Hritz from the left wing. After having missed her 3-pointers earlier in the game, Hritz didn't have the most positive vibes when she let the ball fly but the shot was pure and hit nothing but net.

"I'm not gonna lie, the first few didn't go in so my confidence was a little bit down," Hritz said. "Once it went in, my confidence went up a little bit."

She used that new-found confidence to score in the post on the next possession to give Canfield a 36-29 lead, the biggest of the game for either team to that point. 

After Salem scored four straight points to get the Canfield lead back to three, sophomore Carly Fleming drove right, went up for a shot and was fouled hard. But she released the ball off the backboard for the basket and hit the free throw to make it 39-33 with 3:07 remaining.

"Our coaches always taught us to go on two feet and it would go in," Fleming said. "A little bit in the beginning of the season, I always went on one foot and it never went in. So I learned."

Dill led the Cardinals with 14 points, Fleming had 11, Hritz scored six and Grace McQuinston, Marina Koenig and Jenna Triveri had four each.

Reese Davidson-Clark led the Quakers with 13 and Rylee Hutton added 10. 

Last season, it was Dill who had the biggest play of the district final, when much like Fleming, she scored, fouled and hit the free throw. And then this season, Dill hit a 3-pointer to give Canfield a 29-26 lead late in the third quarter and started the fourth a basket. She also hit a pair of free throws late.

The senior, who had missed the last two games due to injury, had memories of last season's game as she took the floor in the fourth quarter on Wednesday.

"I feel like we had more endurance than they did like last year," Dill said. "And I feel like the fourth quarter is when we really pulled away just like we did last year."

-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh