The New Year’s resolution of the Lakewood girl’s basketball team was to cut down on turnovers in the second half of the season. The Rangers did just that in their first game of the New Year, committing just 22 turnovers, down from a season average of 25. But they could not convert that into points on the scoreboard and fell to the Magnificat Blue Streaks 50-38 in a non-league home game last Thursday.

Playing without injured leading scorer Nicole Niemi, Lakewood jumped out to a 13-6 first period lead. Rachel Niemi, Nicole’s older sister, scored four of her team's 10 points in the first period.

Magnificat called a time out with 2:28 remaining in the first period and turned on the defense. By the time the Blue Streaks allowed another point. They had turned that early deficit into a 23-13 lead. Lakewood went over ten minutes without a field goal until Niemi scored on a lay-up with six seconds remaining in the first half.

Early in the third period freshman Martha Nagbe scored to cut the Magnificat lead to four, 25-21. Magnificat quickly answered back with a pair of 3-point field goals from Meredith McConville and Kristen DuBroy to extend the lead to 30-21. The Blue Streaks dominated the remainder of the game extending their lead to 48-30 midway through the fourth period. Rangers’ junior guard Jamie Wright nailed back-to-back 3-pointers late in the game to cut the lead to 12. Wright finished the game with nine points and three assists.

“Overall I have been pleased this season,” Rangers coach Nicole Anderson said. “On defense we have only been allowing 45 points a game. We have been battling hard all season. Last year we played our best basketball in the second half of the season, I think we can do that again.”

Lakewood finished the first half of the ’07-’08 season with a 4-6 record. Last year the Rangers started 1-9 before going on to win seven of their final 12 games.

The Rangers will play of non-league home games against North Royalton on January 12 and Lorain Admiral King on January 16 before beginning the second half of the Northern Ohio Conference schedule on January 23 at home against Brush.