Clear Creek Amana senior Lauren HelleBy Pat Harty
Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – The Center Point-Urbana girls basketball team is undefeated and ranked fifth in the state for lots of reasons.

Those reasons were put to good use on Friday at the expense of a young and inexperienced Clear Creek Amana squad.

The Stormin Pointers scored the first eight points in the game and never were threatened while cruising to a 71-31 victory.

Clear Creek trailed 22-3 after the first quarter and 40-12 at halftime. It was more of the same in the second half, which saw the continuous clock rule go into effect in the third quarter when the Clippers fell behind by 35 points.

“We just got in the locker room and I said, `hey, tomorrow we’ve got to get back in the gym and continue to work hard and continue to strive to where they’re at,” Clear Creek coach P.J. Sweeney said of the Stormin Pointers, who improved to 6-0 with Friday’s victory. “What we saw out there, that’s what we’re trying to get to and we’ve got a long ways to go.”

Junior Allison Wooldridge led a balanced Center Point-Urbana attack with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field. The Wisconsin-Green Bay recruit made four of her team’s 10 3-point baskets.

“Every single one of those kids out there could shoot the ball and we just had a hard time recovering and stopping it,” Sweeney said. “We have a long ways to go to get where CPU is at, but we’re going to continue to work hard and tomorrow is a new day. Get in the gym and build upon what we have going and see where that takes us.”

Sweeney was pleased with his team’s success in handling CPU’s pressure defense. The Clippers usually advanced the ball past mid-court, but then struggled to score in half-court sets.

“In that first half they were doing that press and we didn’t have trouble with that press,” Sweeney said. “We didn’t turn it over. But we just had a hard time making that one extra pass and maybe catching it and finishing.”

Freshman Karsyn Stratton led Clear Creek with 11 points, while fellow freshman Meagan Harvey chipped in with nine points.

Clear Creek fell to 3-3 on the season.

Center Point-Urbana  22 18 18 13 – 71
Clear Creek                   3   9  10  9 – 31

Center Point-Urbana (71) – LaMia Sisk 4-9 3-6 12. Olivia Brecht 2-3 0-0 5, Sydney Boevers 5-5 2-5 15, Allison Wooldridge 6-9 0-0 16, Callyn Fox 2-6 2-2 6, Madie Wilson 1-4 0-0 3, Raegan Dufoe 1-3 0-0 2, Adrianna Katcher 3-9 0-0 6, Karly Millikin 0-2 0-0 0, Sara Simon 1-2 2-4 4, Emily Droste 0-0 0-0 0, Rylee Clark 1-2 0-0 2. 25-54 9-17 71.
 
Clear Creek (31) – Claire Navara 0-4 0-1 0, Karsyn Stratton 5-10 0-0 11, Abbi Kinnaird 2-7 1-4 5, Erin Navara 0-1 1-2 1, Lauren Helle 1-3 1-3 3, Meagan Harvey 4-8 1-2 9, Be DeShaw 0-4 2-2 2, Jordan Neely 0-2 0-0 0, Megan Cronbaugh 0-2 0-0 0, Andrea Roller 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 12-42 6-14 31.
 
3-point goals – CPU (Wooldridge 4, Boevers 3, Sisk, Brecht, Wilson,); Clear Creek (Stratton). Fouls – CPU 13, Clear Creek 14.