Ensuring there was no doubt who was the better team, the Cleveland seventh-grade girls throttled visiting Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial 39-3 in a rubber game on Tuesday.
As sixth and seventh graders combined, the Clippers lost to the host LCWM in their season opener but, as sevies only, came back to easily beat the Knights when Cleveland hosted the Valley Conference tournament last Saturday.
After the Clippers won the tip off in the old gym on Tuesday, Brooke Bosse took a Harper Rutz handoff in for the game’s first basket. It was the start of a sequence that lasted the remainder of the half.
Allie Anderson (Above) went on the warpath for the next six points, first scoring on a running jumper, next when she pulled down an offensive rebound and sent it back skyward and through the net and finally when she captured a Knight rebound and sashayed down court for a layup.
Charlotte Meyer drove the baseline for two, and Bosse did the same with an in-bounds pass, and the Clippers were in front a dozen to zilch.
Emma Kortuem robbed the Knights at mid court and took the ball up and in from under the rim for the next Clipper basket. Bosse scored after a Rutz robbery, and with a Kortuem bucket inside, the Clippers led 18-0 at the break.
With a pair of baskets by Kortuem to start the second half followed by a couple of free baskets from Bosse and outside buckets from Mattea Grandaw and Rutz, the Clippers racked up 26 points before the Knights finally got on the scoreboard when they drove the baseline for a basket.
Meyer, Anderson and Rutz scored before the Knights made the front end of two fouls shots. Down the stretch, Bosse scored inside, Kortuem waltzed down the baseline for a bucket, and Rutz bottled a free shot for the game’s final point of the easy-peasy Clipper triumph.
Kortuem totaled 10 points. Bosse and Anderson each dumped in eight points. Rutz contributed five points. Millie Baker and Grandaw each provided two points.
The Clippers traveled to St. Clair on Friday. They will have a chance to avenge their loss to GHEC/T/ML, their only other defeat this season, when they host the Jaguars on Monday.
Harper Rutz breaks toward the basket.
Emma Kortuem launches a one-handed shot.
Charlotte Meyer scoots around a defender.
Brook Bosse confronts a Knight defender on her way to the rim.