The first half of the season for the Tyrone Lady Eagles has been a process of learning on the fly.
In Martinsburg on Saturday, against an 8-1 Central team that returned eight letter-winners, the Lady Eagles may have learned a lesson in how to execute a game-plan on the road in a hostile environment, according to coach Jim Swaney.
They may have also found out a little about the kind of intensity it takes to overcome a team with more talent.
When it was all said and done, Tyrone added another loss to its record, falling to the Lady Dragons 56-36, but Swaney said that if his young team can turn its baby steps into habit, the game would help them in the long run.
“Nobody’s happy that we’re 2-10,” said Swaney. “But what we have to understand is that if we play that hard, against a lot of the teams remaining on our schedule, we have a chance to win nine or 10 basketball games. But we’ve got to be able to play that way. If we don’t come to play hard night in and night out, we don’t have enough offensive fire power to make up for a poor effort.”
Over the first half of the season, Tyrone’s offense has come predominantly in the form of 5-10 junior Hilary McNelis, who averages over 15 points per game and last week became one of seven Lady Eagles to score over 30 points in a single game. But on Saturday, open looks at the basket were a rarity for McNelis against a Lady Dragon defense focused on stopping her first.
When McNelis finally started to get into a groove early in the third, scoring the Lady Eagles’ first four points, Central went to a box-and-1, holding her without a field goal for the final 15:30 of the game.
But more than its inability to get its top scorer into a groove, Tyrone was hurt most by two big Central scoring runs in the second and third quarters.
The Lady Dragons led just 12-10 after the first quarter and the Lady Eagles were executing the defensive game plan their coach had envisioned, locating scorers in transition and jamming its defense into the key while still recovering to contest outside shots.
But a 14-3 run over the final four minutes of the half, ignited six quick points off the bench from Alicia Nevins, jacked the Lady Dragons’ lead to 13 by halftime, 30-17.
After McNelis got it down to single digits to start the second half with a basket inside and a pair of foul shots, Central ran off 11 straight to put the game away.
Kerrie Hinish and Krystal Ferry each scored twice during the run and Nicki Neil, who led all scorers with 17, capped it with a three-pointer with 3:20 left in the third quarter to extend the Lady Dragons’ lead to 41-21.
“It’s crazy, because we lost by 20, but I think that’s about as well as we can play,” said Swaney. “We have some offensive deficiencies, and we’re working hard every day to try to correct those. But against a pretty good basketball team, I think we made them work for what they got.”
With McNelis held under double-digit scoring for the just the second time this season, Sophomore Ashley Roth stepped up to score 10 points, including six in the second half. Emily Ingle scored seven in the first half.
But it wasn’t enough to offset Central’s balance. Ferry scored eight in the second half and finished with 11; Hinish scored 10 and Rebecca Crooks added eight.
HOOP NOTES: Central improved to 8-1….the Lady Eagles turned the ball over 19 times….Tyrone plays three games this week, starting with back-to-back games tonight and tomorrow. The Lady Eagles travel to Huntingdon tonight for a game rescheduled from December before staying home tomorrow for a game against Bald Eagle Area.
Central 56 Tyrone 36
TYRONE – McNelis 1 7-8 9; McKenna 0 0-0 0; Ingle 3 0-0 7; Roth 4 2-3 10; Wallace 0 0-0 0; Lloyd 2 0-0 4; Hoover 2 0-1 4; Stanton 1 0-2 2; Bradford 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 13 9-14 36
CENTRAL – Ferry 3 4-4 11; Neil 5 4-4 17; Kel. Hinish 1 0-0 2; Ker. Hinish 5 0-1 10; Feathers 0 0-0 0; Laratonda 0 2-2 2; Crooks 3 2-2 8; Hinton 0 0-0 0; Nevins 2 1-2 6; Dinkle 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 19 13-15 56.
TYRONE 10 7 11 8 – 36
CENTRAL 12 18 15 11 – 56
Three point goals: Tyrone 1 (Ingle 1).
Central 5 (Neil 3, Ferry 1, Nevins 1).
