CONNEAUT — The red-hot Conneaut girls basketball team kept on sizzling with its ninth consecutive win Thursday, as the Spartans opened up Northeast District Division IV tournament play.
Conneaut never trailed in a 48-34 win over Coventry to win a sectional crown.
The Spartans captured their first sectional girls basketball title since 2001.
Conneaut entered the game as the 26th seed against the 29th-seeded Comets.
The Spartans will now visit No. 1 seed Shaker Heights Laurel at 7 p.m. Tuesday in a district semifinal contest.
Conneaut improved to 12-11, while Coventry finished the season at 8-15 overall.
Junior Alexis Warner led the Spartans with 14 points including three 3-pointers to give her 44 made on the year, setting a new Conneaut single-season record.
Warner broke a 35-year-old record of 42 3-pointers in a season that had been set by Kay Ann Fails in 1991.
“It feels great,” Warner said. “I’m pretty honored, a lot of hard work in the offseason.”
Warner said it was nice to make some additional school history by winning a tournament game.
“It feels special, to come out and do it at home,” she said. “It shows the hard work that is paying off.”
Anna Ring had 12 points and senior Alexis Kiser added nine.
Conneaut coach Nicole Grimmett was happy with Warner’s record-breaking accomplishment.
“She works hard, she’s a great teammate,” the coach said. “She doesn’t get those baskets without her teammates, so I know she appreciate them working hard for her. We were all excited.”
Grimmett said defense was the key to the team’s success against the Comets.
“We focused in on our defense, allowing us to score transition points off of our defense and our steals,” the coach said. “We knew they were gonna come in and play pretty aggressive defense, pretty aggressive man.
"So, we knew we had to get the ball down the court. Keep it moving. And to find some good looks.”
Grimmett said she is proud of her team, which worked hard to post 13 wins so far this season.
“They're excited. They worked hard to get every single one of those wins,” she said. “It's not easy to string nine together. We have some tough ones in there, and they battled.”
Ring, who had a stretch in the third quarter when she hit four consecutive shots, was pleased to get a tournament win.
“I think it's amazing. We basically made history,” Ring said, adding that playing on their home court was an advantage.
The Spartans jumped out to a 10-4 lead after the first quarter and built on their advantage to take 25-14 heading into halftime.
Conneaut built a lead of 16 points in the third quarter at 34-18, and was up 40-26 heading into the final period. The Comets never got closer than down by 12 points the rest of the game.
Conneaut shot 16-for-50 (32%) from the field and 11 of 21 (52.38%) from the charity stripe. The Comets made 13 shots out of 46 (28.26%) and shot 6-for-9 (66.67%) from the free-throw line.
Coventry was led by Nemat Dablas with 15 points.
The Spartans held a 31-30 rebounding advantage over the Lakers.
Grimmett said the Spartans will continue working on what they do best moving forward in the tournament.
“We’ve got to stay focused on what we've been focusing on, control what we can control,” she said. “That's our effort, energy on the defensive end, try to control the boards and push the ball on offense.”