5 Takeaways from Ravenscroft vs. Cary Academy
The Ravenscroft Ravens girls basketball team enjoyed another easy outing on Thursday evening by defeating the Cary Academy Chargers 56-34 to cement themselves as favorites for the NCISAA 4A Championship. Here are some key takeaways from the matchup between the…
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Continue ReadingThe Ravenscroft Ravens girls basketball team enjoyed another easy outing on Thursday evening by defeating the Cary Academy Chargers 56-34 to cement themselves as favorites for the NCISAA 4A Championship. Here are some key takeaways from the matchup between the two programs.
Ravenscroft is GOOD
The Ravens entered their game with the Chargers with a 17-3 record that included a six-game win streak, which has been instrumented by the team’s leading scorer in junior Aliya Richmond, who averages 11.5 points per game.
Richmond managed to obtain plenty of scoring opportunities inside the paint and around the perimeter, but Ravens head coach Mike Ramel made sure to have his players dispense the ball all around the court and attack the Chargers underneath the rim, which gave the Ravens a comfortable lead in the first quarter that they would not surrender.
Efficiency from the three-point line proved to be the difference-maker for the Ravens
The Chargers found themselves immediately outmatched by the Ravens at the start of the first quarter as soon as senior Macy Frederiksen created separation between herself and the Chargers defense at three-point line, where she knocked down two quick shots to give the Ravens a 6-2 advantage.
Senior Kelly Baker was the next Raven to find consistency from beyond the arc, while her teammate Lauren Harrison would drain one herself halfway through the first quarter to hand the Chargers an insurmountable deficit early on.
Frederiksen and Harrison each tallied one more three-pointer alongside Raymond and junior Scottie Dawson to bring their official three-point total to nine at the end of the evening.
Size worked to the advantage of the Ravens
The main challenge for the Chargers heading into their matchup with the Ravens was figuring out how to defeat their opponent underneath the rim, as the Ravens averaged 31.9 rebounds per game as a team, with seven players, including Harrison, Frederiksen and senior Emily Hayman, tallying three rebounds or more with each contest.
The status quo remained in place for the Ravens against the undersized Chargers, who frequently failed to haul in boards on both offense and defense while the Ravens successfully capitalized on multiple chances at the short jump shot.
Ravens reserves shine
With the game comfortably in hand for the Ravens by the end of the first half, Ramel used the second half to expand the number of players in his rotation, which gave sophomores Nicole Keim, Rachel Mason, and Georgia Winston a chance to get further acclimated with Ramel’s gameplan and put points on the board.
The reserves would not generate much offense in the third or fourth quarter, but the highlight would come from a late jump shot by Mason sent her teammates on the bench into a frenzy and capped off a stellar night for the Ravens.
Chargers show fight
Although they were playing behind for nearly the entire evening, the Chargers did everything possible to match the Ravens despite their disadvantages, with junior Abby Pompeo doing the most in terms of getting the ball to the rim and finding her teammates around the court for scoring opportunities.
Pompeo’s efforts were not enough for the Chargers to upset the Ravens, with the loss proving that the team still has many improvements to make in their overall performance, all while the Ravens ride a tremendous amount of momentum heading into their final five games.