Sage Hill takes step forward

Chris Yemma

Heads were turned during the Sage Hill School girls basketball game

Wednesday evening against visiting powerhouse Northwood.

Despite losing to the Timberwolves, 47-38, Sage (2-2) made a game

of it in the final quarter, riding a momentum wave that crashed in

the final two minutes.

For Northwood (5-2), it was a fifth consecutive victory after an

0-2 start to its season.

The Lightning took the floor Wednesday and appeared to be playing

the same type of basketball they did the previous night -- a sloppy

28-19 loss to visiting Calvary Chapel of Downey. But after giving up

the first nine points to the Timberwolves, Sage’s Haywood Wright

scored and the Lightning started plodding away at closing the point

gap.

“We played a lot better tonight,” Sage Coach Shanna Renken said.

“It’s big when you have a game the way we played [Tuesday] and you

can come back and at least compete. We came in fired up and ready.”

Sage trailed the entire game, going down, 32-20, at one point in

the third quarter. But the momentum started to turn and the Lightning

started to click.

The Lightning went on a 7-0 run to close the third quarter and a

13-2 spurt midway through the fourth to pull within, 40-38. Wright, a

6-foot-2 junior had a key steal after a Northwood inbounds pass,

putting the layup in to pull Sage within six points. And after two

missed Sage free throws, sophomore Kaitlin Tyre’s put back pulled the

Lightning within 40-38. “We kept our poise and we stayed strong,”

Renken said. “And that’s always big, especially being a small school

playing a big school. We didn’t let down and we stayed in it the

whole game.”

The momentum wave fizzled in the final two minutes, though, as

Northwood’s Jennifer Tamminen hit three- and two-pointers while Amy

Tucker hit a jump shot to give Northwood the final seven points and

the win.

“A win is a win and a loss is a loss, but it was a good game for

us,” Renken said. “They knocked down some good shots and there’s not

really much you can do about that, but I thought defensively we stuck

in there pretty good.

“I really liked that we were getting in there on some loose balls

-- we didn’t get any last game.”

The Lightning couldn’t seem to stop Tamminen, who finished

shooting 8 of 21 for 23 points, including three three-pointers. The

Timberwolves scored 18 points from beyond the arc.

Katie Puishys, a 6-foot-2 senior, led the Lightning, hitting 7 of

14 shots for 16 points and had five rebounds. Wright finished with

seven points and 10 rebounds -- six offensive.

“Sage Hill made a game of it,” said Northwood Coach J.C. Clarke,

who is in his first year at the Timberwolves’ helm. “They

outrebounded us, but our girls withstood that and came back to win

it.”

*--*

Nonleague

Northwood 47, Sage Hill 38

Score by Quarters

Northwood 16 8 8 15 -- 47

Sage Hill 6 9 10 13 -- 38

Northwood -- Tamminen 23, Hodges 2, Timmons 4,

Truong 5, Ishihara 8, Chan 3, Tucker 2. 3-pt.

goals -- Tamminen 3, Ishihara 2, Truong 1.

Fouled out -- Timmons. Sage -- Schaefer 5,

Hembarsky 2, Yoder-Lee 3, Wright 7, Puishys

16, Tyre 2, Gutierrez 3, McKeon 0.

*--*