The Bellwood-Antis girls basketball team opened their District VI-AA first round playoff game as if the Central Cambria court was their own. The Lady Blue Devils carried 15-9 and 15-7 scoring margins in the first two quarters using a potent offensive attack that featured balanced scoring and a determined defense that gave very little to the Penns Manor girls. In a battle between eighth seed Bellwood-Antis and ninth seed Penns Manor, B-A prevailed 55-50 to move on to the quarterfinals.
At the beginning, it seemed for awhile as if all the points would be coming from the foul line. For those of you who have watched the Lady Blue Devils play this season, you know that usually was a bad thing. The B-A girls did not come close to setting any records at the foul line this year, except maybe for lack of putting the ball through the net when the clock wasn’t moving.
On Monday night at Ebensburg, the past was forgotten and forgiven. Both teams sank 19 field goals. Penns Manor hit twice as many from beyond three-point range. The difference for the first time this year was the Bellwood-Antis superiority at the foul line. The Lady Blue Devils hit 15 of 22 free throws to just eight of 15 for the Penns Manor girls to win the game.
Katie Gardner sunk one-of-two from the charity stripe to open the scoring and Rachael Meredith added two-of-two for a 3-0 B-A lead. The two teams then traded the lead four separate times before the Lady Blue Devils hit eight straight points to take a lead they would hold for the rest of the game.
Trista Sprankle hit two buckets on consecutive trips down court, first on a layup to give Bellwood-Antis a 6-5 lead then a jumper from just inside the foul line. Gardner added two fouls shots and Sprankle finished off the run a bucket from the left side. Gardner’s deuce at the buzzer gave B-A a 15-9 lead.
The Lady Devils ran off a 9-2 streak at the beginning of the second quarter to build a 24-11 lead early in the second quarter. Gardner grabbed an offensive board and scored on a putback, then sank two-of-two from the foul line and Stephanie Hatch hit a short jumper and added a trey before Penns Manor called a timeout.
Sprankle added two-of-two from the free throw line, Ashley Edevane tossed in a bucket and Gardner hit another putback to give B-A 30-16 halftime lead.
In the third quarter, the Lady Comets attempted to get back into the game.
Emily McCombie, who had the game-high with a 20-point performance, tossed in a pair of treys, and Christina Sgriccia and Nicole Houser added two field goals each as Penns Manor cut the B-A advantage to 37-32 at the end of the quarter.
Edevane hit one-of-two foul shots and a jumper, Meredith added a bucket and Lauren Carter hit a short jumper from the side for all the Bellwood-Antis scoring in the quarter.
“They hit some big shots. They must have had good halftime adjustments to hit our zone,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Nick Lovrich. “McCombie hit some big shots. I think our intensity went down. That pretty much sums it up. They outplayed us. They outscored us in the third quarter.”
McCombie tried to rally the Comets in the fourth quarter, with a short jumper from the key and a trey to cut the Blue Devils’ lead to 39-37, but Hatch countered with a trey and a long two-pointer and Gardner chipped in a layup to bring the B-A lead back up to five.
Penns Manor kept coming, but the Lady Blue Devils matched then point-for-point over the remainder of the contest to move on to the next level.
Edevane and Meredith each hit one-of-two from the foul line and Gardner, who totaled seven-of-eight from the line and led B-A with 15 points added two more free throws. Lauren Carter hit a bucket and with time running out, Rachael Meredith signaled the victory with a final layup of a long inbounds pass from Hatch, with the seconds counting down.
Katie Gardner pulled down nine rebounds and had four blocked shots to go with her 15 points. Rachael Meredith scored 12 points and has four assists. Trista Sprankle had eight points, including six in a big first quarter that helped get the B-A girls a huge start and six steals. Ashley Edevane had six points and six assists. Stephanie Hatch had 10 points in a well balanced attack for the Lady Blue Devils.
Christina Sgriccia scored 14 points to back up McCombie’s 20 points for the Lady Comets.
“The kids were real fired up,” said Lovrich. “We are a senior oriented team and our seniors were saying they didn’t want to go out the first round. I think we kind of relaxed a little bit in the third quarter and they made adjustments, but we battled back in the fourth quarter to get the win.”
The Bellwood-Antis girls (16-9) will now meet top seed Westmont-Hilltop on Friday, Feb. 20 at a site and time to be determined. The Lady Blue Devils will try to avenge a 30-point loss to the Lady Hilltoppers in their own holiday tournament. Westmont trounced Bellwood-Antis soundly 52-21 in the finals of the Lady Blue Devil Classic on Dec. 29. Westmont had a bye through the first round.
Bellwood-Antis 55 Penns Manor 50
PENNS MANOR – Sgriccia 6 2-5 14, Witherow 0 2-4 2, Khirkhah 1 0-0 2, McCombie 7 2-2 20, Whitesel 0 1-2 1, Houser 4 1-2 9, Fletcher 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 19 8-15 50.
BELLWOOD-ANTIS – Sprankle 3 2-2 8, Edevane 2 2-4 6, Hatch 4 0-0 10, Meredith 4 4-7 12, Gardner 4 7-8 15, Swanson 0 0-0 0, Erickson 0 0-0 0, Carter 2 0-0 4, Ridgway 0 0-1 0. TOTALS 19 15-22 55
Score by Quarters
Penns Manor 9 7 16 18 – 50
Bellwood-Antis 15 15 7 18 – 55
Three point goals: Penns Manor 4 (McCombie 4).
Bellwood-Antis 2 ( Hatch 2).
