Girls basketball: Slow start dooms Lorain in loss to unbeaten Berea-Midpark

LORAIN — For three quarters, Lorain proved it could battle with a tough Berea-Midpark team. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. Berea-Midpark scored 23 first-quarter points and despite Lorain's zone defense clamping down in the second half, it rolled to a 49-35 non-league win Monday. Lorain (0-3) won two of the final three quarters and held Berea-Midpark to 28 percent shooting, but coach Brian Lynch is waiting on his team to put that effort together for an entire 32 minutes. "We just got done talking about effort the entire game," Lynch said. "We're working on stringing together four quarters of effort for all eight minutes of the quarter." Berea-Midpark (3-0) held Lorain scoreless for the final five minutes of the third, as it ended the period on a 15-0 run to build a 23-7 lead. Freshman guard Lilly Jones scored 11 of her team-high 14 points in the opening quarter before picking up her third foul prior to halftime. Lorain was also led by a freshman in Bella Pinkney, who led her team with 14 points. Despite its tallest player only measuring 5-foot-8, Lorain won the rebounding battle 42-37. Junior Ava Miller led Lorain with 12 rebounds. "We've shown we can compete with anybody," Lynch said. "We showed in spurts against Medina, an effort that if we showed for a complete game, we can win these games. We just have to put every thing together." One area Lorain struggled in was taking care of the ball, as Berea-Midpark forced 30 turnovers. The teams played even in the second half, with Berea-Midpark's lead never eclipsing 18 points but never falling below 12. The highlight of the early part of the season for Lorain has been the play of Pinkney. In the first three games of her career, she's averaging 16 points with a career-high coming in her first Greater Cleveland Conference game against Medina. "I was a little nervous at the start of the season. I knew it was going to be kinda tricky playing varsity basketball against bigger people," the 5-3 point guard said. "I know I'm little, but I have the mentality that I got this and I can go out and score points." Besides Pinkney, Lorain relied on small contributions from everyone in the lineup to balance out the scoring, Sophomore Xynique McGee had six points, senior Brajhia Phillips scored five and no one else scored more than four. "We need Bella more in attack mode all game long. She sets the tone for us both offensively and defensively," Lynch said. "We want to see her getting to the basket, drawing fouls and getting and-ones and putting on a show with her dribbles. She has the ability to really energize the team." Lorain will have to adjust to life on the road as its travels to North Olmsted on Wednesday to start a four-game road trip. In fact, Lorain will only play at home twice until Jan. 7. "We hung with Medina. There were points in that game that we were playing better basketball," Lynch said. "We think we can hang with most of these teams in the GCC. It's just a matter of putting everything together." Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.