Cold-shooting Lady ’Canes fall

Poor shooting proved costly last night for the New Castle High girls basketball team.

The Lady ’Canes were just 17 of 56 from the floor in a 54-47 nonsection loss to North Catholic at the Ne-Ca-Hi Field House.

Each team came in ranked No. 1 in the WPIAL in their respective classification by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — New Castle in Class AAA and North Catholic in Class A.

New Castle (2-1) was hit with foul trouble as well. Lady ’Canes senior sensation Kaylynn Waters picked up her third foul with two minutes left in the second quarter. She was hit with her fourth foul with five minutes to play in the third period.

“The shooting was really the difference,” Lady ’Canes coach Jason Rankin said. “Early foul trouble forced us to get out of the press.

“We have to create tempo and we struggled. The subs played well to keep it at a workable margin while Kaylynn was on the bench.”

New Castle trailed 16-6 early in the second quarter before cutting the deficit to 30-27 at the break.

“We weren’t playing well early on,” Rankin said.

Lauren Woloski poured in a game-best 27 points for the Lady Trojans, including 19 in the first half. North Catholic won the WPIAL Class A title last year.

“I thought Woloski played really well,” Rankin said. “We struggled helping on defense on her.”

Waters netted 20 points with six rebounds for New Castle. Rachael Razzano was next with nine markers.

The Lady ’Canes were coming off back-to-back games to open the season, with the second being a double-overtime win over Lake Ridge Academy (Ohio) on Saturday.

“It’s always tough,” Rankin said of playing three games in four days. “I told the coaches after the game, there’s always a rough game somewhere.

“North Catholic has a tremendous program and they’re always competing. They had two games, too, over the weekend. So it’s no different for them. It’s an emotional thing. Then you have to come back down and play less than 48 hours later. That’s not a team to be flat against.”

The Lady Trojans’ loss came against Quad-A member Oakland Catholic in the season opener, 60-49.