Carey has rough start against defending state champ Bellevue

BELLEVUE --The good news for Carey is it was just one game. In the course of a long season, learning what you need to do better early could pay dividends for the Blue Devils. On the road against the defending Division IV state champion, Carey was overwhelmed against Bellevue, falling 62-25 in non-league action Saturday. "I told them that this is probably the toughest team we're going to play this year," Carey coach Keith O'Flaherty said. "That's out of the way. The biggest thing is we have to learn from this. We have to learn from it and move on. Don't forget this game. Put it in the back and move on." Mazie Gracemyer opened the game with a 3 for the Lady Red as Bellevue led 6-0 more than two minutes in. After Rylie Stoops split two free throws for the Blue Devils (0-1), the Lady Red went on a tear. Kaitlyn Turinsky and Ellie Freitag scored before a triple and two free throws from freshman Ava Jakubcin-Theis made it 15-1. Turinsky knocked down a 3-pointer, Jakubcin-Theis picked a steal and scored and Bailey Nichols canned a 3 for a 23-1 edge. It was all a part of a Carey falling behind 27-1 early. Bellevue pushed the advantage to 32-5 after eight minutes. "We knew their traps were going to be rough," O'Flaherty said. "I thought we prepared for it a little better than we did, but apparently not. That's what got us going. They sped us up too much and they got it into their tempo. Us going that fast, we made some mistakes." Bellevue (1-0) didn't let down from there. Jakubcin-Theis opened the second quarter with a 3 before Turinsky made it 37-5. The lanky Turinsky, who is committed to play collegiately at Division I Youngstown State, finished with 11 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks. "We have a 6-foot-3 Division I post player and she's going to draw a lot of attention," Bellevue coach Kory Santoro said. "They're going to try to double team, but it's going to be hard to do that with the players she has around her that can shoot the ball like we do. I thought inside-out we played very well." Later, Freitag's score increased the advantage to 41-8. Jakubcin-Thies added back-to-back 3-pointers to push the lead to 47-8. The Lady Red press was in midseason form early. Carey had nine turnovers in the first quarter and 10 more in the second quarter. "That's just something we do," Santoro said. "We like to let our defense create our offense a lot of times. It just so happened that tonight everything was working." The Blue Devils played a little bit better in the second half, winning the fourth quarter 9-2. It wasn't much, but it was a positive for Carey. "I told them at halftime not to give up," O'Flaherty said. "I didn't care what the score was. We were going to fight until the final buzzer. They did. They played until the final buzzer, so I'm happy with that." Carey did itself no favors by making just four of the 16 free throws it attempted. "I don't know if it was fatigue a little bit or maybe we're not quite as tired in practice when we shoot free throws," O'Flaherty said. "We struggled today from the line, but I'm guessing it was the fatigue. That's something we're going to have to work on." Bellevue shot well throughout the game, too. The Lady Red made 5 of 7 3-pointers in the first half and 10 of 16 through three quarters. Jakubcin-Theis had 19 points while Freitag finished with 11 points for Bellevue, who had a 34-25 rebounding edge. "I think we got off to a good start," Santoro said. "That's one thing we want to do... and maintain that level of play. I thought they did that for the first half. We got a lot of kids in the game. It was a good opening win." Emily Brodman had eight points for Carey while Stoops and Adalynn Ritter each scored six points. Bella Phoenix added five points. The Blue Devils have just a few days to shake it before they play Hopewell-Loudon on Tuesday. "Games like this, you have to put it behind you," O'Flaherty said. "You don't want to erase it from your memory, but you have to put it behind you and move on. That's just what we're going to do."