Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Howland senior Gia Hoso goes up for a layup during the second half at Boardman. She tallied 8 points.

BOARDMAN — In the gauntlet that’s the All-American Conference, each contest has the makings of a hard-fought duel, the showdown of Boardman and Howland being no exception. In many regards, seniors Mackenzie Riccitelli and Alyssa Massucci had similar halves, but Riccitelli and her Spartans used a second-half push to march past the Tigers, 60-52.

Riccitelli tallied a game-high 25 points, 19 of those points coming after halftime. Junior Sarah Bero adding 16. Massucci led Howland with 24, while senior Gia Hoso tacked on eight.

“What was said at halftime was, are we going to be able to guard Massucci at all or she’s about to go for 50 tonight. We made a little adjustment. We went a little diamond-one on her at the start of the second half, and then we came out of that zone because Howland adjusted and got the high-low game with their bigs,” Boardman coach Jeff Hammerton said. “We always have (Riccitelli) on the wing. We tried to put her at the high-post, but what we did there, we were hoping we can go sideline instantly to the middle.

“When we start hitting that middle pretty quick and when she’s feeling pretty good, she hits one or two, then a couple more start going down. When her confidence goes up, people start jumping to her and then what she did was really nice was dumping the ball off to Sarah Bero getting some layups.”

Boardman (10-4) senior M.C. Werth missed the previous two games with a broken hand and provided an immediate spark, scoring five quick points in the midst of a 7-0 Spartans run to start the game.

Up 15-13 at the end of the first quarter, Massucci went to work, driving for a bucket then nailing a three to induce a Boardman timeout as the Tigers surged ahead 20-13.

The Tigers (10-4) kept an edge on the scoreboard, later up as much as 38-31 following a layup in transition by senior Jessie DeSalvo off a Massucci steal midway through the third. Howland still held a 42-41 lead heading into the final eight minutes by way of a Maya Kubancsek putback.

With 6:39 to play, Riccitelli nailed a three at the top of the arc and scored another swift bucket moments later. Bero was able to effectively attack the paint, with freshman Sam Duble adding 12 points, including a trio of made threes.

“We jumped out of them pretty quick, but we let up a little bit on defense, so we knew coming out in the second half that we needed to start the game like how we did at the beginning,” Riccitelli said. “(Making shots) gives us good energy and we just want to keep moving forward with it. I think a couple of years ago we don’t win a game like this, but now with the girls that we have, I think everyone is just super bought in and we really play well together.”

“(Werth) hit a couple of huge shots at the beginning. This was her first game back after breaking her hand, after she rolled her ankle and getting taken out, this was huge to win this for her.”

Bero added, “We’ve been working a lot in the post at practice, and I trust my teammates and they trust that I can score in the paint, and it’s a really good dynamic that we have and it allows us to get more points in a lot of different areas. That’s what we’ve been trying to do these past few games is get more people to score off the bench. It really contributes to the environment of our team and allows us to have more fun with the game.”

Following the loss, Howland coach Aaron Pounds felt the effort on both ends of the floor was a major factor.

“Defense. We gave up 22 in the first half and 38 in the second half. It’s a little bit of heavy legs, maybe we got to reduce practice a little bit. I don’t have the answers right now, I just know in the second half we’re giving up more than what we’re getting. Our offense is fine, but we have to be able to stop them on defense,” Pounds said. “(This league) does get us ready for postseason play, these teams are scrappy, but we have to get better. We have to go harder in practice.”

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