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Sherman Cruises Past Falconer

Sherman’s Lily Martin turns to dribble upcourt while being defended by Falconer’s Dani Krenzer in a nonleague game Tuesday in Falconer. Photo by Stephen Garvey

FALCONER– The Sherman girls basketball team faced off against some tough competition early in its season and now has found itself coming into its own.

The Wildcats traveled to Falconer for a nonleague contest Tuesday night and collected their third win in a row by defeating the Golden Falcons 56-29.

“We’ve had a rough couple weeks with some stiff competition,” Sherman head coach Emily Eckwahl said about her team’s season. “I think it’s finally starting to pay off a little bit. We played against some really tough teams and now we’ve really figured out how to play with them.”

Meeting for the second time this season, Sherman (10-4, 6-1 CCAA D2 West) was familiar with what drove the Falconer offense — Dani Krenzer. In the December meeting between the two teams, Krenzer scored 18 points and had the Golden Falcons (8-6, 3-1 CCAA D1 East) leading at halftime before Sherman rallied.

Things were different in the second meeting as the Wildcats limited Krenzer to 11 points, and they began to pull away in the second quarter with a huge 15-2 run to start.

Falconer’s Emily Zaranek attempts to make a move around Sherman’s Kelsey Wagner during Tuesday’s nonleague game in Falconer. Photo by Stephen Garvey

“We learned the hard way when we first played Falconer and she hit four 3s in the second quarter against us,” Eckwahl said of Krenzer. “We just learned from our mistakes and she’s a tough player to shut down, but I was proud of the girl’s effort.”

Sherman’s big quarters came in the second and third on the backs of Hayden Fisher and Paige Gratto, who scored 22 and 17 points, respectively, in the game. The duo showed off the versatility of Sherman’s offense being able to score in transition, in the post and from long range where Gratto hit five treys and Fisher had two.

“They do a really nice job of taking turns of who is going to take control each night,” Eckwahl said of the duo. “If one is missing the other can hit, I’m just really proud of their balanced scoring attack. At the end of last season we really became an outside scoring team. I really challenged the girls at the end of the season that they needed to diversify their game and add more tools to their toolbox. They really stepped up in the offseason and it’s starting to pay off now.”

While Sherman’s offense kept rolling throughout the game, Falconer’s couldn’t get its shots to fall when it was able to generate good opportunities.

“We had a lot of good shots,” Falconer head coach Emily Scholeno said. “Unfortunately, they were just in and out. We’ve been struggling on offensive boards, so once we can get that a little bit better we’ll be a lot better threat.”

Benefiting most from missed shots was Sherman’s Tayden Persons with eight rebounds and Leighanne Swan with seven, while Emily Zaranek collected seven boards for Falconer.

SHERMAN (56)

Bates 0 0 0, Persons 1 0 2, PGratto 6 0 17, Wagner 1 1 3, TGratto 3 0 6, Swan 2 0 4, Martin 1 0 2, Fisher 10 0 22, Safford 0 0 0. Totals 24 1 56.

FALCONER (29)

KLynn 2 0 5, AKrenzer 3 2 8, DKrenzer 3 4 11, EZaranek 1 0 2, MZaranek 0 0 0, Harper 0 1 1, Smith 1 0 2, Holmbery 0 0 0, ALynn 0 0 0, Neal 0 0 0. Totals 10 7 29.

3-point goals–PGratto 5, HFisher 2, KLynn, DKrenzer.

Sherman 11 19 17 9 — 56

Falconer 11 5 11 2 — 29

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