Madison falls to Hudson in D-I tournament game
Feb. 23—MADISON — Madison girls basketball coach Heather Reho had a lot of answers this season in her first year leading the Blue Streak program.
On Thursday night in a Divison I sectional semifinal against visiting Hudson, the answers ran out as the hot-shooting Explorers ran away with a 68-40 victory over the Blue Streaks.
"I knew they could shoot, but I didn't think that they would make that many," Reho said after Hudson made 30 of 65 shots (46%) from the field. "We just couldn't stop it. We tried every defense and they just had a really good shooting day."
Madison started out strong, racing out to a 9-5 lead midway through the first quarter.
Hudson, which started out the game making just 1 of its first 11 shots, then caught fire by by closing out the quarter on a 11-2 run.
The visitors then continued that hot hand through the second quarter, connecting on 10 of their 20 shots, including five from behind the arc. They outscored Madison 24-5 to take a 40-16 lead into halftime.
"We have all kinds of kids who can hit shots, so we don't worry about that too much," Hudson coach Dennis Lawler said. "We did shoot it well tonight, and we have been shooting it well here lately. Probably the last four-five games we've been playing our best basketball."
Madison had a tough time getting any flow offensively against a tall Hudson defense that swarmed leading scorer Zoey Deliganis (seven points) and held the hosts to just one shot a possession for most of the night.
Senior Clarie Wakim came back after sitting out nine games due to injury, and gave the Blue Streaks a jolt by leading her team with 14 points, all in the second half.
"If she was healthy enough to play, I wanted her to get one more start on this floor," Reho said of Wakim, who added five rebounds and four assists. "She's very talented."
Fellow seniors
Sydney Sorber (six points, five rebounds) and Allyssa Snider (five points) had solid final games. Sophomore Kendra Smith contributed six pointgs and five rebounds.
Madison finished the year with a 18-5 record, the most wins the program has had in the last nine years.
Reho was appreciative of the girls and their efforts this year.
"I'm very proud of them," she said. "We had a lot of good memories. This group was fun. They like to laugh, and that's one of the things that I really enjoyed about them.
"It was never really work to me."
Hudson was led by 6-foot-2 junior center Paige Button's 17 points, while junior Corrine Stearns and sophomore Abby Henderson each added 13 points.
Hudson (11-13 overall) will advance to take on No. 8 seed Medina a district semifinal game at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Ravenna High School.
