Girls basketball: Keystone pitches first-half shutout against Memorial, cruises to district semifinals

LAGRANGE — The appetizer portion of Keystone's postseason is over. Now come the meat and potatoes. After a 17-point win over Youngstown Liberty in their tournament opener, the second-seeded Wildcats were never in danger of losing to 45th-seeded Campbell Memorial, pitching a shutout in the first half on the way to a 53-8 win Saturday in a Division III sectional final. Keystone scored the first 45 points of the game. The Wildcats, who improved to 24-0, will continue their magical season Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the district semifinals against fourth-seeded Rootstown at Cortland Lakeview High School. While Wildcats coach Rocky Houston knew the Red Devils (3-20) would not be much competition, he didn't change anything in preparation. "We just focused on what we have to do on the floor and not on the other team and what they can and can't do," Houston said. "We focus on what we want to do defensively and how we want to defend, what we want to do offensively, and go out and execute." The early execution was on point when Helayna Houston opened the game with a 3-pointer, Brooklyn Barber had a pair of layins, Jessica Forthofer hit a free throw and Vivian Cassell made a basket to quickly put the Wildcats up 10-0. Cassell and Madyson Sokolowski led Keystone with 11 points, while Forthofer had 10. Keystone was far from perfect, missing 14 straight field goal attempts at one point. While in any other postseason game that could prove fatal, it wasn't a problem Saturday for Keystone, which forced 20 turnovers in the first half. The shooting drought came to an end when Forthofer hit a pair of layups that seemed to spark the offense. Keystone followed with four straight 3-pointers to end the half, one from Barber and three from Sokolowski off the bench for an unbelievable 36-0 lead at the half. "That was a lot of fun," said Forthofer, who recently recorded her 900th career rebound. "We all just went out there to play basketball, everyone was making shots and the atmosphere was really fun with the big crowd. We definitely want to play at our pace of the game, and we were making a lot of extra passes to get the look that we want." It wasn't until there was 3:05 left in the third quarter that Memorial finally scored. Contact James Brady at (440) 329-7135 or jbrady_ct@yahoo.com. Keystone 53, Campbell Memorial 8 CAMPBELL (8): Angelis Espada 1-0-3, Angeliz Diaz 0-0-0, Yaleiska Diaz 0-0-0, Rayona Floyd Brown 0-0-0, Diamon Sims 0-2-2, Ariana Gonzalez 1-0-3. Totals 2-2-8. KEYSTONE (53): Helayna Houston 2-1-6, Rylee Jedrzejek 0-0-0, Kendall Crabeels 0-0-0, Brooklyn Barber 4-0-9, Hayden Graham 0-0-0, Jessica Forthofer 4-2-10, Mia Stefan 0-0-0, Madyson Sokolowski 4-0-11, Vivian Cassell 5-0-11, Brooke Senghaus 0-0-0, Callie Crabeels 3-0-6. Totals 22-3-53. Campbell&emsp; &emsp;0&emsp; &emsp;0&emsp;&emsp; 3&emsp;&emsp;5&emsp;&emsp; —&emsp;&emsp; 8Keystone&emsp;&emsp;11&emsp;&emsp;25&emsp;&emsp;13&emsp;&emsp;4&emsp;&emsp; —&emsp;&emsp;53 Three-point goals: Campbell 2-6 (33 percent, Espada, Gonzalez), Keystone 6-22 (27 percent, Sokolowski 3, Houston, Barber, Cassell). Field goals: Campbell 2-21 (10 percent); Keystone 22-59 (37 percent). Free throws: Campbell 2-2 (100 percent); Keystone 3-13 (23 percent). Rebounds: Campbell 20, Keystone 39. Turnovers: Campbell 28, Keystone 8.