Turinsky, Lady Red win battle of No. 1 teams

BELLEVUE — Wipe away the tears and keep playing. After a collision in the fourth quarter, Bellevue senior Kaitlyn Turinsky did just that. The bottom of Turinsky's chin met Cassidy Lane's head in a bang-bang play, stunning the 6-foot-3 Turinsky for a bit. Not much was going to keep Turinsky out of the game. Turinsky finished with 17 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks, leading the Division IV No. 1 Lady Red to a 47-28 win over Division VI No. 1 Margaretta in Sandusky Bay Conference crossover action Saturday. "It was so exciting," Turinsky said. "I've been excited about this game since the beginning of the season. It was the No. 1 game I wanted to win. I love good competition. It was really fun." Turinsky got the better of Lane most of the day. Lane was limited to four points and 10 rebounds. Both are signees to Division I colleges. Turinsky will attend Youngstown State while Lane is headed to Gardner-Webb. "I think Kaitlyn is the best post in the area," Bellevue coach Kory Santoro said. "She's a tough matchup because she can beat you off the dribble and also down in the block area. She came ready to play today." Bellevue (8-0) led for all but four seconds of the game. The first lead came on the opening tip as Ava Jakubcin-Theis scored quickly. It was 8-7 for the Lady Red when CJ Savage and Bailey Nichols scored. Bellevue took a 12-7 advantage into the second quarter and increased it on a pair of Turinsky buckets. Ashlyn Kingsborough scored for the Polar Bears (8-1), but Jakubcin-Theis hit a 3, Turinsky scored and Jakubcin-Theis registered a score. That pushed the Lady Red up 23-9. The tallies from Jakubcin-Theis came after two fouls in the first quarter forced her to the bench. "I'm not the type of coach that when you get two fouls, I'm going to bury you on the bench," Santoro said. "I told her to sit there a couple minutes, get refocused and she was going back in the game. She came in and hit some big shots for us. For a freshman, that's pretty good." Lane scored her two lone buckets of the game less than a minute apart, but Bellevue led 27-13 at the break. Turnovers hurt Margaretta throughout. The Polar Bears had 10 in the first half. "I thought in the first half we forced a lot of turnovers," Santoro said. "We slow-played our press a little bit and went man-to-man full-court. We dug down deep in the half court. We feel really confident in our man-to-man." Bellevue pushed the advantage to 30-15 in the third quarter on a bucket from Ellie Freitag. Margaretta showed a little bit of life as Ellyse Schaefer hit a 3 and added two free throws. But, 10 points was the closest the Polar Bears got. Ahead 32-22 later, Nichols and Freitag scored to extend the lead to 14 points after three quarters. "I'm proud of our girls," Margaretta coach Ray Neill said. "We talked about coming in here and being ready to play early. Even though we went into the locker room down 14, we were still in an OK place. The third quarter goal was to get it under 10. We got it to 10, but not under 10. For the third quarter and half of the fourth quarter, we played pretty even." The Lady Red were up 38-26 more than halfway through the fourth quarter after a bucket from Kenadie Saylor. After the Turinsky-Lane collision, Turinsky swatted away a shot. That led to Freitag scoring. Bellevue used a 9-2 run over the final 3:08 of the game to put it away. "We have a lot of nice pieces of the puzzle," Santoro said. "We can shoot it. We can beat you from the 3-point line. We can beat you driving the ball to the hoop. We can beat you down low. We have length and we have athleticism. We have tough, physical kids." Margaretta finished with 24 turnovers to Bellevue's six. "One of our goals coming in was to limit their 3-point shooting abilities," Neill said. "We did a great job of that. Unfortunately, the (18) extra turnovers led to 10 layups. That was the difference in the game." Schaefer and Lane had the Lady Red's defensive focus from the get-go. "Shut them both down," Santoro said. "That was the game plan — to take them out of their game and make them earn everything they get. I thought (Turinsky) and (Jakubcin-Theis) did a great job defensive-wise." Saylor and Kingsborough each scored eight points for Margaretta. "Are we disappointed we lost the game today? Yes, we are," Neill said. "But we will learn from it and get better from it. We'll be better prepared for bigger things down the road. None of our goals were lost today. We lost the ball game to a really good team. "We'll take that humbly and get back in the gym soon and prepare for our next opponent." The Polar Bears are 3-0 in the SBC Bay Division. Margaretta travels to Vermilion (4-6, 2-1) on Tuesday before hosting Willard (7-1, 3-0) next Saturday. "We play games like this for obviously the environment and competition, but also the future," Neill said. "By that, I mean we can't simulate in our practice the length that Willard has. But Bellevue gives us that look. We need it for further down the road when you get to tournament time and you have to play long, athletic teams." Bellevue, 3-0 in the SBC Lake, travels to Copley (7-1) on Monday before hosting Norwalk (5-2, 3-0) at 6 p.m. Friday. "This is a great bonus," Santoro said. "You play a team like this and you have two No. 1 teams coming in here. This happens every year, it seems like. It's great to play in this environment. You don't see this type of atmosphere at a lot of bigger schools. "These communities come out and support their teams. What a great atmosphere." MARGARETTA (8-1) Ashlyn Kingsborough 4 0-1 8, Thea Wybensinger 1 0-0 3, Cassidy Lane 2 0-0 4, Ellyse Schaefer 1 2-2 5, Kenadie Saylor 4 0-0 8, Lily Belak 0 0-2 0. TOTALS 12 2-5 28 BELLEVUE (8-0) Ellie Freitag 4 1-2 9, Ava Jakubcin-Theis 3 2-2 9, CJ Savage 2 2-4 6, Kaitlyn Turinsky 8 1-2 17, Mazie Gracemyer 1 0-0 2, Bailey Nichols 2 0-0 4. TOTALS 20 6-10 47 Margaretta 7 6 9 6 — 28 Bellevue 12 15 9 11 — 47 Three-point goals: Margaretta 2 (Wybensinger, Schaefer); Bellevue 1 (Jakubcin-Theis)