Lake girls fall to Clyde, regular-season winning streak snapped at 61 games

CLYDE — Slow starts have plagued Lake for the majority of the season.
But each and every time they start poorly, the Flyers regroup and pull away for yet another victory.
Until Monday night.
This time, the slow start came back to haunt the Flyers, as Clyde snapped Lake’s 61-game regular-season
win streak in front of a sold-out crowd at Clyde.
Clyde, ranked fourth in the Division II state poll, out-scored the Flyers 29-8 and forced 10 turnovers in
the first quarter, and didn’t allow Lake, ranked fourth in the Division III state poll, within 12 points
the remainder of the contest, resulting in a convincing 63-44 non-league victory.
“We knew they were going to come out pumped up,” Lake head coach Denny Meyer said. “They’ve (Clyde)
talked, in the newspapers, about wanting to end our streak. We’ve talked about that, but I thought we
came out very, very afraid.”
This marks the first time Lake, now 18-1 overall, has lost in the regular season since losing to Elmwood
during the 2007-2008 season when it was under the direction of coach Dick Fox.
Meyer had been 58-0 in the regular season since becoming Lake’s head coach, but said his first loss could
be good.
“I think this might not be a bad thing, getting the streak off of our back,” Meyer added. “That caused a
lot of the nerves. I think we knew how good they were and I do believe that our girls were starting to
tense up about the streak.”
Clyde’s size and mixture of its 1-3-1 zone defense forced multiple problems for Lake, resulting in the
Flyers shooting only 16-of-48 (33 percent) from the field and 6-of-27 (22 percent) from 3-point
territory.
Lake seniors Carly Huston and Kaysie Brittenham each had their most daunting tasks of the season as they
were each matched up against arguably the best players they had seen all year.
Huston was in the paint against fellow 5-foot-11 post Kaylea Griffin throughout most of the game until
she (Huston) fouled-out with 3:20 remaining in the contest. Huston tallied 11 points in the game and
collected eight rebounds, while Griffin managed only six points, as she was in foul trouble in the
second half.
Brittenham, perhaps, shot as poorly as she had all year, yet she still ended up with a team-high 17
points which included three baskets from beyond the arc.
“We had to put Kaysie on (Amanda) Cahill,” Meyer said. “Now she’s got to work like crazy on defense
trying to guard Cahill inside, getting pushed around, getting pounded, and I’m sure that affected her
shooting some.”
Cahill, standing 6-1 and one of three freshman for Clyde, finished the game with 16 points and eight
rebounds.
After a time out at the 6:22 mark of the second quarter, Lake went on an 11-2 scoring run and had hoped
to continue chipping away at Clyde’s lead, but the deficit was too much and Lake went into the break
trailing 40-24.
Clyde’s Spencer Robles paced the Fliers with a game-high 18 points which included two 3-pointers and
eight conversions from the free throw line.
In all, Clyde finished the contest converting 17-of-21 shots from the charity stripe.
Lake didn’t go away easy, cutting the lead to 12 with 5:05 left in the third, and Meyer had felt that if
his team could have cut Clyde’s lead to 10 it would have a good shot at still winning.
But Lake missed three crucial baskets, including two layups, towards the end of the third quarter which
would have put it within nine points of Clyde, all but ending any hope of a comeback.
Lake will now take its rare regular season loss and prepare for a shot at the outright Suburban Lakes
League championship Thursday night at Genoa. Lake is 11-0 in the SLL while Genoa is 10-1.
“Every year we have three goals as a team,” Meyer said. “One is to go undefeated. One is to win the
league title. And one is to go far in the tournament. I just told them the least one that we care about
of the three is to go undefeated.
“The main one is to win the league title and we have that one right in front of us Thursday night.”
Clyde won the junior varsity game 48-19. Cortnee Cowell led Lake with eight points.
CLYDE 63, LAKE 44
LAKE
Brittenham, 2-3-4—17; Woodruff, 0-1-0—3; Johnson, 0-1—1; Cox, 1-2-0—8; Huston, 5-1—11; Shaffer, 2-0—4.
TOTALS: 10-6-6—44.
CLYDE
Smetzler, 1-4—6; Weber, 0-1-0—3; Dickman, 0-2-0—6; Michaels, 2-1-1—8; Robles, 2-2-8—18; Cahill, 6-4—16;
Griffin, 3-0—6. TOTALS: 14-6-17—63.
LAKE
8
16
12
8
—44
CLYDE
29
11
10
13
—63
Junior varsity: Clyde , 48-19.