Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 13, 1993 TAG: 9303150539
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium
CAVE SPRING GIRLS BACK IN STATE SEMIS
It was a tall order, but Cave Spring's girls filled it and made it back to the Group AAA state basketball tournament semifinals.Fighting mammoth W.T. Woodson with quickness, the Knights won the first-round game 58-51 Friday.
The Knights (25-3) travel to Charlottesville for the semifinal round Thursday. That's where Cave Spring's season ended last year with a loss to Phoebus, the eventual state champion.
Woodson (20-9) challenged Cave Spring with 6-foot-3 Bridget Cleary and 6-0 Mary Klima along with 5-11 J.P. Patterson.
The Cavaliers won the battle of the boards 40-31, but the Knights penetrated Woodson's defense and put Cleary in early foul trouble.
"We preferred for them not to go to Klima as much as they did. We didn't do that very well and she kept them in the game," Cave Spring coach Linda Long said.
Woodson coach Anne Gasser said her team wanted to set the tempo and slow it down. "We fired too many outside shots. I didn't feel as if we stuck to our game plan," she said.
Klima had 20 points and 12 rebounds. The Cavaliers couldn't stop Cave Spring's fast break or deadly shooting.
First, Amy Athey came out firing short jumpers in the first half. Then Cheryl Rhodes got layups inside on passes from guards Kim Stewart and Aimee Beightol, who each had five assists.
Then in the final quarter, with the game on the line, Kelly Dierker came alive for four baskets.
"We play as a team, so if someone's open, we give them the ball," Athey said.
Still, Cave Spring got off to a slow start as it has done before in the tournament. Woodson led by five at the end of the first quarter, but by the half the Knights were on top 30-27.
"If I knew the answer to [first-quarter problems] I could sell them to a college coach," said Long.
The Knights never trailed after the first half, but Woodson tied the score 31-31 on a pair of free throws by Klima. Then Athey hit a free throw and Beightol, the shortest starter on the court at 5-2, fought her way among the trees to get an offensive rebound and layup for a 34-31 lead. Cave Spring never trailed again.
Finally, the Knights, who were nursing leads from two to eight points, put Woodson away in the final quarter. Leading 50-47 with three minutes remaining, Cave Spring went to the delay game. Dierker got a pair of layups and then Stewart hit two free throws with 46.1 seconds left to end an 8-2 run that put the game away.
For Stewart, the two free throws ended a frustrating night of shooting in which she made only three of nine shots and missed all four 3-point attempts in the first half.
"It's probably the worst I've shot," she said. "When I wasn't hitting, I started trying to put the ball up on their defense."
Shooting wasn't a factor because Stewart did so many other things. She had three of the Knights' eight steals that helped thwart Woodson's offense and was a big part of the 15 assists Cave Spring had. \
see microfilm for box score