The Bellwood-Antis began the new year are a good note coming home from their first contest of 2006 with a 44-29 victory over the Glendale Lady Vikings to improve their record to 3-4 in the Juniata Valley League and 4-6 overall.
The B-A girls doubled up Glendale in the opening quarter 12-6, opening up with a 6-0 run on one bucket each from Liz Erickson, Jamie Smith and Lauren Carter, before the Lady Vikes matched Bellwood-Antis 6-6 for the remainder of the stanza.
Carter popped in a short jumper to begin the second quarter and Erickson, a freshman added two baskets and a foul shot with the Lady Blue Devils carrying a 21-9 advantage into the locker room at halftime.
With the Bellwood-Antis girls playing excellent defense, Glendale was able to counter with just six points in the first quarter, three in the second and nine in the third, before finally cracking doubles figures with 11 in the fourth, far too little, too later.
“We worked on defense in practice the last couple of days, moving our feet and getting into position, instead of reaching and fouling,” explained Bellwood-Antis coach Nick Lovrich. “I told everybody we are just going to keep getting better, as young as we are. We had less fouls and held them under 30 points. That’s a pretty good accomplishment, they are probably averaging 35, 40 points a game and we held them under 30. Any time you can hold a high school basketball under 30, that’s a pretty good job.”
With Jamie Smith and Carter each scoring four points, Bellwood-Antis matched Glendale in scoring in the third period to maintain their 12-point lead going into the final stanza.
Entering the fourth quarter leading 30-18, Cater personally took care of the scoring, as the Lady Blue Devils went on an 12-0 run to put the game on ice. Carter, a senior, who led all scorers with 22 points hit the first three baskets of the quarter and added a foul shot on a conventional three-point play, the old fashioned way and following a basket by Erickson, added one of two free throws and another basket to stretch the B-A lead to 42-18. Erickson scored 11 points for the B-A girls. Cater grabbed 13 rebounds and blocked three shots.
From that point on, the only Bellwood-Antis points were a pair of foul shots by Amanda Ingram, Glendale never got closer than the final 44-29.
“We think the inside attack is our bread and butter,” said coach Lovrich. “We have two big tall girls, who are pretty good players and we like to try and get them the ball and tonight, I think our guards did a good job getting it to them. Liz and Lauren might get the points and get their names in the paper, but all those other kids out there got the ball to the big girls in good position to score and they capitalized.”
Bellwood-Antis travels to Juniata Valley for another Juniata Valley League contest on Thursday.
Junior Varsity
Glendale put the junior varsity game in the win column before the first was over, taking a 19-2 lead at the halftime intermission.
The B-A junior varsity gave a good account of themselves in the second half, matching the Glendale Jayvees point-for-point, 19-19 in the third and fourth quarters, but dropped their fifth decision in seven games.
Amanda Ingram led the Lady Blue Devil junior varsity with 10 points. Victoria Lombardo had a big game with five points, nine steals and seven rebounds and Shalee Hunter added five points and eight rebounds.
Tiffany Twigg led Glendale with 13 markers.
Bellwood-Antis 44 Glendale 29
Bellwood-Antis – Webb 0 0-0 0, Lechner 1 0-0 2, Carter 10 2-4 22, Erickson 5 1-4 11, Smith 2 2-2 6, Ingram 0 2-2 2, Young 0 0-0 0, Lombardo 0 0-0 0, Lender 0 0-0 0, Hunter 0 1-2 1, Riley 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 18 8-14.
Glendale – Laing 0 1-2 1, Morrison 2 0-0 4, McGarvey 1 3-4 5, McQuown 2 0-0 4, Peoples 0 1-2 1, Matthews 2 0-0 5, Twigg 0 0-0 0, Dick 0 0-0 0, Budzinski 1 0-0 2, Horon 1 0-0 2, Krise 0 0-0 0, Noel 2 0-0 5, Kovach 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 10 5-8 29.
Score by Quarters
Bellwood-Antis 12 9 9 14 – 44
Glendale 6 3 9 11 – 29
Three-point goals: Bellwood-Antis None.
Glendale 2 (Matthews, Noel).
