Lady Cards Off to Fast Start

Ryan Jones
www.WeAreColerain.com

The Colerain Girls’ Varsity basketball team is off to an outstanding 5-0 start and is currently ranked sixth in the Division 1 Enquirer Coaches Poll. The Lady Cards have not lost a step under new head coach Christi Mack, who has led the team to its second consecutive season with a 5-0 start.

Colerain’s first three opponents couldn’t come within double-digits as they beat Ursuline 60-48, Northwest 76-40, and Middletown 57-22.

The first challenge of the season came at Harrison on Wednesday night in a game that came down to the final minute. With Colerain up by a point with under a minute to go, the Lady Cards played some stingy defense and forced a bad shot by Harrison. On the other end of the floor senior guard Katie Comello, who was having a fairly quiet night by her standards due to some foul trouble, hit two big free throws and then stole the in-bounds pass and hit two more free throws to put the team comfortably ahead with about 30 seconds to play.

The Lady Cards were led in scoring that night by junior guard Ashley Wanninger, who had 22 points and five rebounds including a few timely 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter to help put Colerain on top.

Colerain followed up that win on Wednesday with a win at home on Saturday afternoon over Fairfield in an ugly game with a final score of 49-38. The win was aided by a huge performance from senior Kara Patterson who contributed 9 points and a remarkable 16 rebounds, including 7 offensive boards. This effort helped offset an enormous game from Fairfield’s Brittany Fisher who had 21 points and 9 rebounds in a losing effort.

Early in the season, quite a few of the Lady Cards are putting up impressive numbers. Junior Ashley Wanninger currently leads the GMC in scoring average at 19.8 points per game; sophomore point guard Alexis Fitzpatrick is second in the GMC in assists, averaging 4.8 per game; senior Kara Patterson, with help from her big game against Fairfield, currently leads the GMG in rebounding with 10.3 rebounds per game; and senior Katie Comello is tied for second in the league in the steals category, averaging 3.8 steals per game.

But more importantly, Coach Mack currently has the team at 5-0 and playing some pretty good basketball on both ends of the floor. Not only is Colerain playing well on offense averaging 61.2 points per game, but they are playing some aggressive defense, allowing just 41.4 points a game while forcing an astounding 21.8 turnovers per game.

This week the Lady Cards travel to Mason (2-2, 1-1) on Wednesday where they have a huge score to settle with the Lady Comets. Last year Colerain’s season was ended early when they were upset by Mason in the state tournament in an exciting game that ended in heartbreak for the highly-ranked Colerain squad. They will be looking for a little revenge this week and could use some help from the fans, so make sure to show up and cheer on our undefeated Lady Cardinals this week at 7:30 up in Mason.

Also later this week Colerain will be hosting Oak Hills (3-2, 0-2) on Saturday at 2:00. So if you can’t make it to the Mason game this week, be sure to come out and support the team at our home gym.