Experience Wins Out as Clarion Rallies to Beat Clarion-Limestone in Overtime as Taylor Alston Has 19-point, 15-rebound Double-Double

STRATTANVILLE, Pa. (EYT/D9) — The Clarion-Limestone girls basketball team led for much of regulation against Clarion.

Then the Bobcats’ experience took over.

Clarion outscored the Lions 12-1 in overtime in coming away with a 43-32 victory on Friday evening.

(Pictured above, Clarion senior Taylor Alston)

Taylor Alston once again handled much of the workload for Clarion scoring 19 points and pulling down 15 rebounds. She also made 7-of-10 free throws with 4-of-6 coming in the extra session. Clarion overall shot 8-of-12 from the line in overtime while C-L made just 1-of-4 free throws in the extra period.

“We work on our free throws all the time in practice,” said Clarion head coach Sam Heeter. “Tonight is the reason we do that. We knocked the free throws down when they counted.”

Clarion Area and Clarion-Limestone Area High School sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Redbank Chevrolet and DuBrook.

Gia Babington scored seven points for Clarion while Sophie Babington scored all five of her points from the free throw line with a 5-of-6 effort.

Erika Meals led C-L with eight points while Jenna Dunn, Samantha Simpson, Hannah Beggs, and Julianna Schwabenbauer all scored six points for the Lions.

“Earlier in the season this game probably doesn’t go to overtime as we’d have probably lost it in regulation,” said C-L head coach Gus Simpson. “It shows that these girls continue to grow although it doesn’t always show on the scoreboard. I’m proud of how they continue to work to try and get better.”

After a 5-5 tie early in the game, C-L closed the quarter on a 5-3 spurt to lead 10-8 after one quarter.

C-L (0-7) started the second quarter with a 7-2 run to push its lead to 17-10 at the 6:21 mark. Clarion closed the quarter with a 4-2 edge to cut the lead to five at 19-14 by halftime.

The two teams combined for just 13 points in the third quarter with Clarion holding a 7-6 edge to cut the lead to four at 25-21 after three.

With C-L still ahead by four at 29-25 with 3:17 to play, the Bobcats responded with a 6-0 run, the last two baskets coming off a steal and layup by Marley Kline and Alston which gave Clarion a 31-29 lead.

Meals scored with 1:17 to play to tie the score at 31-all.

Neither team scored the rest of the way as Clarion attempted to play for the last shot. But a turnover gave the ball to C-L and the Lions Lions misfired on a last-second shot to send the game to overtime.

“I told them at halftime that C-L plays an intense style of basketball and that if we didn’t start the match their intensity that it would be a long night,” said Heeter. “I felt our girls responded much better in the second half. We switched to a half court type of press and that seemed to confuse them a bit and we were able to get a couple easy buckets off of that, which settled our girls down a bit and gave them some more confidence.”

Gia Babington made the first and only field goal of the overtime period to give Clarion a 33-31 lead. Hannah Beggs made one-of-two free throws to cut the lead to 33-32. Clarion then proceeded to make 8-of-12 free throws to set the final score.

“I just told our girls to keep believing in the process in what we are trying to teach them,” said Simpson. “People are not going to want to play C-L after Christmas break with some of the strides we are making. We have a young group and we’ve been playing five-minute junior varsity quarters because I believe these girls need to play against girls in their own age group instead of playing against just the more experienced girls on other teams at just the varsity level. Those minutes of J.V. time is very valuable to that overall growth for this team.”

Clarion Area and Clarion-Limestone Area High School sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Redbank Chevrolet and DuBrook.