Tigers Knock Off Lady Cardinals in Girls' Hoops

head girls’ basketball coach Kim Hansen had her about the inexperience of her backcourt quickly realized against Shaw on Wednesday night.

In attempting to contain the Lady Cardinals’ penetrating backcourt of Chanel Davis and Sabrina McLin, new Tiger guards Ashaunti Abshaw and Jasmine Rasul both fell into foul trouble and sat for good parts of the first half.

But sophomore Abshaw, who moved up from junior varsity this season, wasn’t about to play tentative or collapse under the weight of playing for higher stakes as her 10-point explosion during the third quarter played a decisive role in helping the host Tigers down the Lady Cardinals, 55-39.

“I was fresh off the bench, had two fouls,” Abshaw said. “I feel like it’s my job to get the team up, get the intensity up because I’m a power player. I have the intensity the team needs.”

The Tigers, ranked 12th in The Plain Dealer’s Top 25 poll, improved to 5-1 and 3-0 in the Lake Erie League. Shaw, who just entered the poll at 25 this week, suffered their first loss of the season and fell to 5-1, 2-1 in the LEL.

Cleveland Heights’ senior front line of Supriya Frierson and Jasmine Harper led with 13 points each. Harper also had 10 rebounds. Abshaw finished with 12 points overall and sophomore Arion Jackson had 11. Shaw’s Davis was the game’s high scorer with 17 points.

Abshaw and running mate Rasul, a senior transfer from Lutheran East, replaced , who was in attendance, and Ra’chel Walton on last year’s team that made it to the district semifinals.

Abshaw touched Chanel Davis for her second foul at 5:28 of the first quarter. Nonetheless, Abshaw came out of the locker room with a new mindset. Tied at 25, Abshaw scored the Tigers’ first six points of the quarter to complete a 6-2 run that briefly put them up, 31-27.

Shaw rallied with a Javannah Jackson bucket and a Davis’ three-pointer to lead, 32-31, and Abshaw quickly picked up her third foul.

After the teams exchanged the lead three times, the last coming on Harper’s turnaround shot at 2:12, Abshaw gathered herself once again and capitalized on steals created by Harper and Frierson for two more layups and a 39-34 lead the Tigers never relinquished.

“It was a good, hard battle. The first half, we got off kind of slow, but the second half, we picked it up,” Frierson said. “Ashaunti had a good second half; that helped us out. And Jas (Jasmine Harper), she came up on the inside game so that helped me out, too. We just dominated on the boards as usual and kept it going.”

The mounting first-half fouls prompted Hansen to change the game plan, away from a man-to-man defense and into a zone formation to combat Shaw’s drives to the basket.

The defensive shift worked to perfection in the fourth quarter because after Javannah Jackson’s bucket at 6:01 made it 45-39, the Lady Cardinals didn’t make another shot of any kind. Tigers scored the game’s last 10 points for the final margin.

“I think going to the zone definitely affected those players. We talked about if you are beat, don’t make two mistakes by committing a foul, and I do think that was part of our problem in the first half. … I think the kids played smarter in the second half, which obviously helped them,” Hansen said.

Shaw has been one of the surprises of the early season in local girls’ basketball, and Shaw head girls’ basketball coach Dana Jeter said it’ll take time for the Lady Cardinals to adjust to certain pressures the team will face in games.

“This is a growing pain for us. We’re very young and I think as we start to develop and get older, we’ll become more disciplined. That’s the only thing we’re lacking,” Jeter said. “We have the skill. We have the ability. It’s just the mindset and the discipline that we’re lacking. Once that comes, we’ll be a contender.”

The Tigers play in a holiday tournament that features Geneva, Midview and Collinwood and begins on Dec. 28.

Shaw                           17   8    9    5   39

Cleveland Heights     12  13  16  14  55

Shaw – Sabrina McLin 4, Chanel Davis 17, Crashonna Wynn 2, Natalie Wilson 2, Chanelle Johnson 4, Javannah Jackson 6, Davina Black 2, Fredniqua Walker 2.

Cleveland Heights – Ashanti Abshaw 12, Arion Jackson 11, Jasmine Harper 13, Supriya Frierson 13, Daija Lee 6.