Bellwood-Antis came out at the opening whistle looking to play the spoiler against undefeated Juniata Valley league front-runner Claysburg-Kimmel. The Lady Blue Devils fashioned an 11-7 advantage after one quarter, with freshman post player Liz Erickson scoring seven and senior six-footer Lauren Carter had four.
The B-A girls couldn’t handle the Claysburg-Kimmel press in the second quarter however, after not seeming to have much trouble with it in the opening stanza.
“We started the game off really well, the first quarter we won 11-7,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Nick Lovrich. “Then in the second quarter, their press got to us. We made some mistakes, turned the ball over. That kind of opened the gates for them.”
The Lady Bulldogs pounded out scoring advantages of 17-7, 16-8 and 21-6 over the final three periods to extend their perfect record to 5-0 (3-0 in the JVL).
Claysburg-Kimmel came out hot in the second quarter, coupling a potent offense with the press to score the first 10 points of the quarter to pull out to a 19-11 lead, before Jamie Smith knocked down her only basket of the game from three-point range. Brittany Webb added a foul shot to slice the B-A deficit to 19-15. The Claysburg girls retaliated with five straight points of their own, before an Erickson bucket set the halftime score at 24-17 Claysburg.
At the beginning of the third period, the teams traded baskets with Erickson hitting a basket and Carter two, but Claysburg went on another rampage to open the margin to 42-23 before Erickson fired in a short jumper as the third quarter ended with Claysburg-Kimmel up 43-25.
Claysburg-Kimmel kept up the offensive pressure to begin the fourth quarter, going on a 15-4 run, with a pair of baskets from Carter, the only scores from the Lady Blue Devils, until Amanda Ingram buried a trey with the ga,e all but over. Claysburg scored the final two buckets to set the final score as the Lady Blue Devils fall to 1-3, with a game at home against the Lady Damsels of Moshannon Valley on Friday.
“Claysburg took advantage of our mistakes, the finished their layups, they scored points on transition,” explained Lovrich. “Those mistakes are something a young team is going to do. We are going to have to be able to take better care of the basketball and hopefully we can get better before our next game on Friday.
Carter canned seven field goals and didn’t go to the foul line to lead the Bellwood-Antis girls with 14 points. Erickson had 11 points, but just four in the last two quarters, when Claysburg kept her out of the Blue Devils offense.
Lacy Claar led all scorers with 19 points for Claysburg-Kimmel and Kayla Musselman and Monica Iachini added 12 points each for the Lady Bulldogs.
Bellwood-Antis shot just seven foul shots, sinking two, while Claysburg was eight-of-14 from the charity stripe.
Junior Varsity
In the preliminary game, the Claysburg-Kimmel junior varsity broke out of a tie in a closely contested game to go on a 9-0 run and take control. After the two teams were deadlocked at 20-20 with 5:50 remaining in the third period, the Claysburg girls jumped out to a 29-20 advantage and the Lady Blue Devils were never able to catch up, finally dropping a 54-39 decision. The B-A girls were able to close to within four points twice, but couldn’t get any closer.
Amber Claar netted 16 points to lead the winners and Megan Burkett added 13.
Victoria Lombardo led Bellwood-Antis with 15 points and Amanda Ingram contributed 10 points.
Claysburg-Kimmel 64 Bellwood-Antis 36
Bellwood-Antis – Webb 0 1-2 1, Lechner 0 0-0 0, Carter 7 0-0 14, Erickson 5 1-3 11, Smith 1 0-0 3, Ingram 2 0-0 5, Lombardo 0 0-2 0, Lender 0 0-0 0, Hunter 0 0-0 0, Parsons 1 0-0 2, Riley 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 16 2-7 36.
Claysburg-Kimmel – L. Claar 9 1-2 19, K. Musselman 5 0-0 12, Leslie 2 0-0 4, R. Musselman 3 0-1 6, Iachini 5 2-2 12, Paris 0 0-0 0, A. Claar 1 2-2 4, Luciano 1 1-1 3, C. Claar 0 2-4 2, Burkett 1 0-0 2, Walter 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 27 8-14 64.
Score by Quarter
Bellwood-Antis 11 6 8 9 – 36
Claysburg-Kimmel 7 17 16 21 – 64
Three-point goals: Bellwood-Antis 2 (Smith, Ingram)
Claysburg-Kimmel 2 (K. Musselman 2)
