The Cardinal Huskies girls’ basketball team announced its presence in the Northeastern Athletic Conference in a big way. The Huskies controlled the game from start to finish, prevailing 45-32 against NAC Stars Division foe Pymatuning Valley last Thursday evening in Middlefield.
“I think it is a total confidence booster for them going into the NAC and seeing what all the competition is compared to the Chagrin Valley Conference,” said Coach Kim Domen. “All of those girls are juniors now and they’ve had a place since they were freshmen.”
According to the third-year coach, although the Huskies (3-1, 1-0) are newcomers to the NAC Stars Division, finding a foothold in the conference does not seem like a daunting task as the scrappy style of play throughout the league is a style Cardinal is well-accustomed too.
“They are excited and looking forward to it and our goal of course is to be the NAC Conference champs but we will not go that far just yet,” she added. “We are taking it game-by-game and day-by-day, one step at a time and see where it leads us.”
On Thursday, Cardinal seized control with a full-court pressure defense, sparking its offense in transition, and junior forward Ivy Kaminski fueled the Huskies to a 14-11 advantage by scoring 11 points in the opening period.
Domen credited the Huskies’ stellar execution with its full-court pressure defense, as soon as Cardinal pried the ball out of the Lakers’ hands, they were off and running with Kaminski pacing the fast break.
“Ivy is a tremendous player,” she noted. “Ivy is long and smooth, and she can jump. We just got a lot of steals off of our press and Ivy was just in the right place at the right time. She can find a way to the hoop, and she was shooting some 3s.”
The Huskies’ full-court pressure continued stifling Pymatuning Valley in the second quarter as Kaminski added seven more points while junior forward Natalie Soltis scored six points as Cardinal outscored the Lakers by a 15-9 margin.
Although the Huskies played only had a six-player rotation, they never let up their full-court pressure defense.
Domen noted that although Cardinal is a small team in roster size, applying full-court pressure defense throughout a game is not uncommon for her players and is largely the same style they have played over the last several years.
She said that as accustomed as the Huskie girls are to playing a high-intensity pace over the course of an entire game, their athleticism is aided by being multi-sport athletes, as most players compete in at least one varsity sport across the three seasons of high school athletics.
“Most of these girls pretty much play three or four sports all year round so being able to do this with these types of athletes is pretty rare,” she said. “I am pretty proud of them, and they are pretty much in shape so that is our M.O., we are quick, and we are fast and the get after it.”
In addition to being a well-conditioned team, Cardinal’s starting five consists of four returnees in Kaminski, Soltis, junior guards Emily Pleva and Nova Young with senior forward Brynley Kitzmiller being the only newcomer to the starting line-up but has been with the program for the last three years, splitting time between varsity and junior varsity.
Domen acknowledged that Cardinal became turnover-prone in the third period, allowing the Lakers to tip the scales slightly in their favor but the Huskies prevented their opponents from gaining momentum and only outscored them by one point with the Cardinals holding a 36-28 advantage at the end of the third period.
Although she only scored two points in the third quarter, Kaminski took the reigns once again, scoring seven points in the fourth period to close things out, sending the Huskies to their third straight victory.
Kaminski paced all Huskie girls by scoring 27 points in the game.
Cardinal’s full-court defense pressure continued yielding results, as it surrendered only four points in the final frame.
“They were fired up and wanted to make a statement and I kept telling them after the third quarter, I am like ‘Listen you have eight minutes to play and if we call the timeout, you have this many minutes to play, you have to hold onto the ball. If you continue to do those things, you will capitalize,’” Domen noted.
After a road duel against NAC Stars Division rival Matthews on Monday evening, Cardinal will return to action for a crossover league game by hosting St. John in Middlefield on Dec. 15 at 6 p.m.
