Cranberry Classic leads to a strong night of basketball

WOOD COUNTY--The Panther Girls split a pair of games over the weekend in the 40th Annual Cranberry Classic. On Friday night, the Lady Panthers used a strong start to jump out to an 18-0 lead over Nekoosa on route to a 46-7 first half lead. The Panthers continued a strong defensive effort in the 2nd half and finished with a 66-13 victory to move to 2-1 on the season.
Pittsville had 4 players in double-figures, led by Emma Bowden with 15 pts, Brynn Friday with 13, Reese Grimm with 12, and Kaylee Jacobson with 11. Grimm led the Panthers with 6 rebounds, while Lana Vollert had 4 assists and Brooke Grossman had 5 steals.
The Panthers met #1 in D5 Assumption for the championship game on Saturday Night and were unable to overcome 41 turnovers and an Assumption team that shot 13-21 from 3 pt for the night. Pittsville trailed 13-15 midway through the first half, but Assumption finished on a 15-7 run to lead 30-20 at the half. The Royals shot 8-11 from three in route to the 10 point halftime lead. Pittsville came out with the first 3 points of the 2nd half to trim the lead to 7 and were within 8 with 12 minutes to go, but could not overcome a turnover total that doubled their team turnovers combined for the first three games of the year. Pittsville shot 54 percent from the field to 51 percent for Assumption, but were outshot from three point range 13-21 compared to 3-6 for the Panthers. Pittsville also won the rebounding battle 34-16 and forced 16 assumption turnovers, but neither were enough to overcome the blistering three point shooting and turnover discrepancy.
Pittsville’s Reese Grimm had 13 pts, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals, while Brynn Friday led Pittsville with 10 rebounds. Brooke Grossman led the Panthers in steals with 4.