The Lady Ravens played toe to toe with the Lady Bulldogs through three periods.  Unfortunately, the game is played over four periods and the Butler team dominated the final period outscoring Rocky River 19-3.

The game moved back and forth throughout the first half with the game tied at intermission 27-27.  Both teams shot fairly well and the game was physical under the boards with both teams playing aggressively.

The Lady Bulldogs applied an effective full court press in the third period that gave the Lady Ravens fits until they were able to snap some outlet passes to the edges and center court to break the press and beat the defense to the ball to move it down court.  However, it took a lot of time to collapse the full court press.  Therefore,  with just under 5:00 minutes remaining in the period the Ravens pulled off a 13-3 run to tie the game at 40-40 with under 20 seconds in the period.  The Lady Bulldogs scored on a three point play by Michaela Lane with under 5 seconds to give the Bulldogs a 43-40 lead.

In the fourth period the Butler height advantage took over control of the game as the team collectively and consistently grabbed multiple rebounds after a missed shot to eventually score points on the Ravens to build up a huge gap on their lead.  It fact Butler had a 17-0 run which totally put the game out of reach for the Lady Ravens to mount any kind of comeback as the Bulldogs outscored the Raven 19-3 in the period.

The leading scorer for the Lady Bulldogs was Michaela Lane with 28 points, while Nia Nelson chipped in 11 points for the victors.  Rocky River’s Andresia Alexander pumped in 17 points, while Mashya Scott contributed 12 points for the Lady Ravens.

The Lady Ravens play on Friday night at home December 8th against Myers Park start time 6:00 PM.