Nordhoff Goes Inside to Down Ventura, 54-46

Judging by the rainy weather and three-of-15 shooting from behind the three-point arc, outside was no place for Nordhoff High to be Saturday night.

So the Rangers went inside.

With Erin Barker and Christen Roper leading the way, Nordhoff beat Ventura, 54-46, in a nonleague game at Nordhoff featuring two of the region’s top teams.

Barker, a 5-foot-9 senior forward, had 26 points and eight rebounds. Roper, a 6-5 junior center, bounced back from early foul trouble to finish with 21 points and eight rebounds.

“We try to get it inside,” Barker said. “It’s pretty much the biggest part of our game, and that’s what I like to do.”

Barker drove through traffic in the lane for most of her points, though she also made a three-point basket.

Roper, who is foul-prone, was a force inside. Ventura couldn’t stop her.

That was especially true when the Cougars’ Kristine Gleisberg, a 6-1 sophomore center, got into foul trouble.

Gleisberg scored 15 points in the first half. But she was benched after picking up her fourth foul two minutes into the third quarter. She did not return until the last 3:35, finishing with a team-high 20 points and seven rebounds.

Nordhoff led the entire game. With Gleisberg on the bench, the Rangers (18-5), ranked eighth in the region by The Times, took their biggest lead, 41-28, with 3:14 left in the third quarter.

Nordhoff extended its lead with an 11-3 run to open the fourth quarter. Roper, who sat out most of the first quarter after picking up two fouls, had five points in the run.

“That was an opportunity to go ahead and really take control of the game,” Roper said. “This was a good game for us to play.”

Ventura (15-6), which is ranked 10th in the region and has lost three times to top-ranked Buena, stayed close most of the way by making 17 of 27 free throws.

Even with Gleisberg on the bench, the Cougars cut a 13-point deficit to four with 5:12 to play behind the play of forward Alex Gientke, who had 11 points and nine rebounds.

Barker responded by scoring six unanswered points and eight of the last 10 for Nordhoff.

“We just went inside and took advantage of the situation,” Barker said.

It was a physical, intense game featuring rough play inside.

Although no one fouled out, Roper and Barker each collected four fouls, as did Gleisberg and teammate Rhiannon Potkey.

“We wanted to come up and play this game because we wanted preparation for the playoffs,” Ventura Coach Glenn Gray said.

“We knew Nordhoff would be tough, and it was a hard kind of game for us. But give them credit, they made shots and they did what they had to do.”