Spartans cruise past Harding
BOARDMAN — Warren G. Harding girls basketball team’s season came to an end on Saturday with a 68-42 loss on the road against Boardman in the first round of the Division I Canton sectional.
This marks the third time this season that the Spartans have defeated the Raiders.
“Jeff does a great job and his girls are always ready to play,” Raiders coach Frank Caputo said. “They did a great job preparing and came out on fire, making a lot of shots and we couldn’t match them.”
Harding was paced by junior Toni Donaldson and senior Kia Allen with 14 and 13 points, respectfully.
Harding started the game off with a couple quick layups to take a 4-1 lead in the opening minutes, but that vanished quickly.
“I’m very disappointed overall,” Caputo said. “Our first quarter was very slow and stagnate for us. We really wanted to get the tempo moving, but it was a very slow start.”
Boardman finished the quarter on a 14-3 run and never looked back, leading by 16 at the break.
The Raiders struggled tremendously against the zone, which led to a rough night of shooting. Harding only mustered up 22 points in the first three periods of play.
With Boardman up 61-36 and three minutes left in regulation, a technical foul was called on Harding senior Chardonnay Burke. When coming off the court, Burke was visually shaken by the incident and claimed that a racial slur was directed toward her by a Boardman player.
“I’m a little disappointed in the situation that happened obviously,” Caputo said. “We will do our research and see what happened and hopefully it was a misunderstanding. I’m hoping what was claimed said wasn’t actually said.”
The Spartans finished the night with four players in double-figures, led by senior Lauren Gabriele with a game-high 18 points.
Junior Jenna Vivo and senior Lauren Pavlansky contributed 16 and 12, each, while sophomore Alicia Saxton finished with 11.
With the season coming to a finish, Caputo was able to reflect briefly on the year.
“There were a lot of ups and downs, but one thing the girls never did was give up,” he said. “They push through to the end and that’s going to be a great life lesson for them. When things go wrong or things go bad, you have to keep fighting and keep pushing and things will work out for you in the end.”
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