Lady Fishermen blow out Comets

Courtesy of Chinook Observer
By PHIL RAISTAKKAObserver corespondent

ASTORIA - The Naselle Comets girls were only trailing the Astoria Fishermen by four points at the half-time intermission of their opening game of the Vince Dulcich Memorial Tournament played in the Astoria High Brick House Wednesday, Dec. 27. However, that changed quickly in the second half as the Comets were only able to score 10 second-half points, while the Lady Fishermen popped in 26 on their way to a 38-18 win over the Comets. Naselle's overall record dropped to 3-4 for the season.Taking a page from their male counterparts' playbook, the Fishermen girls used a full court pressure defense to harass the Comets into turnovers or hurried shots and the result was an Astoria runaway win. In contrast to their game against Raymond last week, the Comets could not consistently get into their offense for good shots. Most of the Naselle points came on breakaways and solo efforts.Naselle opened the game as though they would be right in the game with Erin Saari, Cheryl Steppe and Jenny Klinger each scoring. They led 8-6 at the end of one period. The second period was a different matter as the Comets could not find the hoop, going scoreless for the period, and they went in at the half trailings 8-12.The Comets were able to hang around through the third stanza with Saari and Ashley Ahlstrom each scoring four points for the Comets. However, Astoria were able to counter the Naselle points with two three-point plays and win the quarter battle 10-8 to lead 22-16 going into the fourth period.The Fish then went on a fourth period 16-0 run that wasn't stopped until Saari finally scored with a little over a minute left in the game. That was it for the scoring and Astoria sent the Naselle girls home with a 38-18 loss and a spot in the tournament's consolation game against Banks.(Last Friday's game with Banks, which lost to Knappa in its tournament opening game, is not published in the sports section of this edition of the Chinook Observer due to the early printing deadline for that section of the paper caused by the New Year's Day holiday.)

NASELLE (18) - Erin Saari 8, Ahlstrom 4, Steppe 4, Klinger 2, Pakenen, Landis, Beaulaurier, Rodriguez:

ASTORIA (38) - Jennifer Stephens 9, K.J. Carr 9, Cullen 6, J. Coggins 6, O'Bryan 4, Roman 2, Hillard 2, Wilson, B. Coggins