The Lady Lakers played host to the Edison State Chargers today and earned a hard fought 69-57 victory. With the win the Lakers improved to 17-2 overall and 6-0 in conference play. The Lakers had a strong start to the first quarter and held a 13-4 lead after a Zion Fussell 3-pointer. The Chargers would battle back and take advantage of Laker miscues and close out the quarter trailing Lakeland 15-10. Both teams traded offensive blows in the second quarter. The Lakers would build a 10 point advantage, 26-16, after Fussell had a steal and a layup followed by an Edison turnover and a Madison Fueger layup. The Lakers would then committ successive turnovers and have a missed shot allowing the Chargers to close the gap to 1 at 26-25 at the break. In the third quarter, with the Lakers leading 43-39, Gianna Pegoraro would drain a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired on a nice kick out from Micaha Marbury. After a Charger basket, Lauren Perry would hit a 6' jumper as she sliced through the lane. The Chargers would score again before Pegoraro answered by driving the lane, getting fouled, and still making the basket. Pegoraro would miss the free throw, but Perry would grab the offensive rebound and then score to give the Lakers a 52-43 lead at the end of three quarters. The teams would trade baskets early and the the Lakers maintained a 9 point lead, 58-49, after a Fueger layup with 6:45 to play. The Chargers would then hit some shots off of Lakers misses to close the gap to 61-57 with 2:02 to play. Makayla Gordon was then fouled and connected on 1-2 free throws to push the Laker lead to 62-57. On Edison's next possession, Alesia Marshall would steal the ball and hit Gordon with a long pass as she made a layup and push the score to 64-57. On the next possession, Marshall would steal another ball and feed Gianna Pegoraro for a driving layup and a 66-57 lead. Edison would then miss their next shot. Fueger corraled the rebound and fed Pegoraro who was fouled. She connected on 1-2 free throws. Edison would come down with one final hope to get back in to the game and would miss. The Lakers then brought the ball down to dribble out the time. Lauren Perry was fouled and sank both free throws for the final score.
The Lakers had 8 different players score in the balanced attack. Three players finished with double digits. Lauren Perry was the high scorer finishing with 23 points. Madison Fueger finished with 13 points while Gianna Pegoraro added 12 points for the Lakers. Mya James scored 8 points while Zion Fussell finished with 7 points in the Lakers win.
The Lakers conference win total changed this week as Bryant & Stratton announced that they could not finish their season. As a result, all conference games played against the Bobcats this season, still count in the overall record, but do not count in conference standings. This conference process ensures that all conference members will still play all conference opponents the same number of times.
In a special event, the Lakers welcomed the Euclid Marching Panthers to the game. The Panthers were led by Dr. Sara and assisted by DeShaun Howard. The Marching Panthers put on a great half time performance and added a tremendous presence throughout the game.
Gardy's Gab: "That was a challenging game. We didn't seem to quite have the energy level that we typically have and Edison played hard and made some good shots. We haven't beaten them the last four times we've played them - so this was a good league win. We missed quite a few free throws but still played well enough to get the win. We have a lot of room to improve and we will work to get better."
Next Up: The Lakers travel to Fremont on Wednesday (2/1) to face the Tartans of Terra State. The game is scheduled to tipoff at 5:30 pm.
