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Parker girls too much for Craig

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2007 Girls Craig-Parker Basketball

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JANESVILLE — Janesville Craig High threw everything it had at cross-town rival Janesville Parker High Friday night, but it still wasn’t enough to rattle the battle-tested Vikings.

Mixing defenses and playing its most complete game of the season, the host Cougars hung with fourth-ranked Parker for three quarters. But, the Vikings never caved and pulled away in the fourth quarter to remain undefeated after securing the 61-43 Big Eight Conference victory.

Craig made nearly half of its shots (16 of 33), but committed 19 turnovers, while defending conference champion Parker had only four through three quarters and finished with eight. The Vikings (4-0 overall, 3-0 in the Big Eight) also benefited from six three-pointers.

“I think we do a pretty good job of running our offense, but tonight wasn’t a night to run your offense, because of the gimmick defenses they were throwing at us,” Parker coach Tom Klawitter said. “We just needed to play basketball and find the open person. But, at the end, I thought we were really clicking.”

Due to the Vikings’ formidable backcourt, Craig (2-3, 2-2) changed defenses all night to try and rattle Parker and standout guard Catie O’Leary, but could not overtake Parker after the Vikings erased an early 4-2 deficit.

“We threw some different defenses at them, and we’ll keep throwing them at them,” Craig coach Mark Marsden said. “They want teams to play man-to-man defense against them, because of their small line-up. But, they will slice and dice you to death. We are too big to match up with that tiny line-up they put out there, especially at the beginning of the game, so we have use the gimmick defenses.”

O’Leary, the conference player of the year, commanded most of the attention, but helped the Vikings pull away with 13 of game-high 18 points in the second half. Alex Klawitter added nine points, on three three-pointers.

Danielle Straw, who had both Craig three-pointers, led the Cougars with 12 points.

“Craig is always changing its defense and we know to expect that,” O’Leary said. “But they have so many different kinds of zones, that you always have to do something a little bit different on offense.”

Parker seemed to find the right combination to solve the zones. Alexis Hilden put back a rebound to cut the Craig deficit to 35-29 in the third quarter, but Klawitter and O’Leary countered with back-to-back three-pointers to increase the Parker lead to 41-29 with two minutes and 41 seconds left in the third quarter.

Craig never again closed the gap below nine points as Parker made 10 of its 14 fourth quarter free throws to stay in front.

“We had some kids hit some big shots throughout the night,” Klawitter said, as eight of his players scored in the contest. “But, we still have some things to clean up.”

PARKER 61, CRAIG 43

Parker (61)—Prom 2-2-6; Klawitter 3-0-9; O’Leary 5-7-18; Koebler 3-0-8; Quillman 1-1-3; Newlin 2-0-4; Flood 3-0-6; Zinn 2-3-7. Totals 21-13-61.

Craig (43)—McQueen 2-1-5; Benson 2-5-9; Sanchez 2-1-5; Storbakken 3-2-8; Straw 5-0-12; Hilden 2-0-4. Totals 16-9-43.

Three-point goals—Parker 6 (Klawitter 3, O’Leary, Koebler 2). Craig 2 (Straw 2). Free throws missed—Parker 5, Craig 7. Total fouls—Parker 18, Craig 16.

Junior Varsity—Craig won 47-40. Leading scorers from Craig—Lindsey Oliver 13, Kelsey Kennedy and Taylor Storbakken 10. Leading scorers from Parker—Kathryn Pernot and Kyrsten Klosowski 10.