By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
 Independence Township — Cagers dominated in the second half of their home game against Saginaw Heritage last Thursday for a 53-29 win.
“We had a very slow start,” said Clarkston Girls Varsity Basketball Head Coach Aaron Goodnough. “I think it’s early season jitters, but also we didn’t have a ton of practice. We have two extra games this year and everybody is in the same boat. That stuff you have to do over time and we just haven’t had a lot of time. I was happy.”
Heritage jumped to the lead, opening the game with a 3-pointer from Alexis Ringley.
Senior Keira Tolmie and freshman Elli Robak brought the Wolves into the lead with the next two baskets before both teams went back and forth for the lead.
Heritage finished the quarter with a 12-9 lead with a basket seconds before the buzzer sounded.
They opened the second quarter with another basket. Tolmie responded with a 3-pointer and one point from the free throw line to cut Heritage’s lead to one point.
The Hawks sank a basket putting the lead back up by three points and Clarkston responded with a 10-point run with five points from senior Ava Hernandez and four points from Robak.
The Wolves closed the first half with a 23-21 lead over Heritage.

“We are trying to get out of the habit of one pass shot, one pass shot, one pass shot,” Goodnough said. “We want to run the floor, but they keep that speed in their heads when we needed to pull back the reins on them a little bit to try to get them to then run off us. We came out the second half and did exactly that.
“When we had fast break opportunities, we capitalized on them we weren’t forcing them. When we got back on half court, we threw more than one pass before we shot. It was very novel. It was nice. That’s what we want to play. That’s the offense that we brought.”
He added at half time he told the team to just do the things they are capable of doing.
“It’s there,” he said. “We can see it. At the end of the game, I told them I am starting to see glimmers of things we want to do in the larger scale.”
Tolmie opened the second half with two baskets within the first minute with Robak and Hernandez following each with 3-point shots, putting the score 33-21. The Wolves would finish the third quarter with a 44-23 lead.
“We knew there were two players on their team we really wanted to lock up a little bit,” Goodnough said. “We kept rotating girls to guard their point guard, she is a very talented. We are trying to run a defense where it is ball pressure all the time and we are pressuring on both sides. We did that in the second half where we didn’t do that in the first half and it really showed.”
Robak led with 16 points. Hernandez had 14 points and Tolmie had 12 points.
“Keira really led us which is what we needed,” said Goodnough. “At times we get a little frazzled, and she will slow us down a little bit. Elli is going to be great for us.”
Clarkston Girls JV Basketball also won their game over Heritage, 52-7. Lauren Fishtahler had 12 points and four steals. Jenna Thomas had eight points and eight rebounds.
The Wolves opened the season with a 50-34 win over Novi, November 29. Robak led with 16 points. Hernandez had nine points and Emily Valencia had eight points.
“It was good,” said Goodnough. “It was about what we expected. In both cases we really wanted to focus on us. I didn’t have tape on Heritage because this is their first game. So we just said let’s go out there and run our stuff. We will figure it out as we go and that’s what we did.”
JV won their season opener over Novi, 61-9. Sydney Mutter led with 13 points.
Clarkston opened this week against Dakota on Tuesday. They host Chelsea on Thursday.
“Chelsea is a bear,” said Goodnough. “They are tough. These three games will set us up to play that type of game. I definitely put together a pretty tough schedule.”
They host Birmingham Seaholm on Tuesday, December 13. JV plays at 5:30 p.m., varsity follows.

  Clarkston Girls Basketball, Girls Basketball