But even just keeping pace with sophomore sensation Anna DeWolfe proved to be a difficult task for Poland, which couldn’t keep up during a 61-21 loss in a WMC contest Friday night.

The Rangers (7-1) jumped ahead 9-3 without DeWolfe scoring a point, but the Knights’ (5-3) own standout player, junior Nathalie Theriault, poured in four straight to cut it to 9-7.

Then DeWolfe broke through for the final six points on the first quarter for a 15-7 Greely lead.

She scored six more in the second, seven in the third and five in the fourth to finish with a game-high 24 points — outscoring Poland on her own.

“She definitely makes coaching on the offensive side pretty easy,” first-year Greely coach Todd Flaherty said. “She’s hard to guard, she draws a lot of attention, which opens up our other people, who are capable in their own right.”

The Knights’ best offensive output as a team going into Friday night was 53 points — or one point less than the Rangers’ worst night, a stat Poland coach Michael Susi was well aware of.

“We talked about before the game, and the days leading up, that the game’s not going to be won in the 20s and 30s,” Susi said. “It’s a game that we’re going to have to take shots and make shots. A good defensive night is holding them to the mid-50s to high-40s. That’s a really good defensive night. That’s a team that can drop 80 on anybody.”

The scoring pace early on favored the Knights. That is, until DeWolfe got going.

“She gets into the paint and draws two defenders, and then somebody’s got to be open, and that’s kind of what starts our offense,” Flaherty said.

“The margin for error, obviously, is very thin,” Susi said. “I think our game plan coming in was we don’t want to give up transition layups, we want to force them to take those outside shots.”

Greely’s first three field goals were all 3-pointers to go up 9-3, with Brooke Obar making the first and Moira Train draining the next two. But then the treys stopped pouring in.

It took a combination of DeWolfe driving the lane and one of the Greely players occupying the middle of the Poland zone defense to get the normally potent Rangers offense going.

The Knights, unfortunately, couldn’t keep up.

“You can’t turn the ball over, you can’t turn down open shots,” Susi said. “And that was one of the things we talked about at halftime, is they’re getting twice as many shots as us because we’re turning down open looks for no reason. If people are open, they’ve got to shoot it, and then we’ve got to make those shots.”

The Knights’ first quarter proved to be their best offensively with the seven points. The second and third quarters netted just five points each, and only four were scored in the fourth.

The Rangers had their best period in the third, pouring in 19 points, with Obar matching DeWolfe’s seven points.

Obar finished with 12 points, Train had eight and Isabel Porter scored five of her nine points from the foul line.

Theriault led Poland with seven points, and Jessica Seeley added five.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

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