After Saturday\u2019s 54-45 victory against United in the consolation game of the Williamsburg Tipoff Tournament, the Tyrone Lady Eagles had put together back-to-back games in which they led by double-figures by halftime.
\nNow the trick becomes playing the last eight minutes as well as the first eight.
\nTyrone led the Lady Lions 22-11 at intermission, forcing United into 12 first half turnovers and 16 percent shooting from the floor.
\nBut the second half \u2013the fourth quarter in particular \u2013 was a different story. Rather than taking the ball away, Tyrone at times looked more than willing to give it away. At the same time, the Lady Eagles\u2019 shot selection was suspect, with shots coming much too early in the offense to please coach Luke Rhoades.
\nBut their saving grace was their ability to withstand United\u2019s full-court pressure late and to hit critical foul shots down the stretch. So while the Lady Lions were able to trim the lead to three points twice in the fourth quarter, they were never in a position to take the lead.
\n\u201cThe positive thing from this game is that we did shoot very well from the foul line at the end of the game, which I was very happy about,\u201d Rhoades said.
\nThe Lady Eagles hit 14 of 16 foul shots over the last 4:38 of the game. Freshman Rachael Emigh was 4-for-6, while junior Kayla Corle went 4-for-4.
\nEvery one of them was necessary, considering the kind of role United was on. Through three quarters, the Lady Lions had made just 6 of 38 shots, but in the final period they hit 7 of 14, including three in a row with under three minutes to play, pulling within a three-pointer of tying the game when Jessica Bloom scored inside at the 1:33 mark to make it 44-41.
\nBut Tyrone was 6-for-6 from the stripe after that, and Emigh and Meg Turiano each scored on run out layups off of United pressure.
\n\u201cI could tell when we came in the gym today for shoot-around that our intensity level wasn\u2019t there,\u201d said Rhoades. \u201cIt seems like we only have three girls on the court at a time that are performing at the level we need to perform at. If we keep that up, we\u2019re going to struggle against the better teams.\u201d
\nThe game was similar to Tyrone\u2019s first victory of the season against Juniata Valley on Thursday, a game the Lady Eagles led by 20 in the fourth quarter before the Lady Hornets cut it to seven late.
\nThen, too, Tyrone was looking for quick shots early in the offense rather than running it through and working the clock.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get comfortable running the offense, and we also have to get comfortable just holding the ball,\u201d Rhoades said. \u201cWe talked about that on the way down here today, and that it was similar to what we did against Juniata Valley.\u201d
\nTyrone led 11-3 after the first quarter, and held the Lady Lions without a basket until the 3:35 mark of the second. Liz Tepsic scored the Lady Eagles\u2019 first five points of the second quarter as they built an 11-point lead at halftime.
\nAn 8-3 run at the end of the third quarter made it 36-21 before United started to chip away at the lead.
\nLiz Tepsic led Tyrone with 13 points, while Corle, Emigh and Brooke Garbinsky each added eight.
\nBloom was the game\u2019s top scorer with 15, 12 of which came in the fourth quarter.
\nThe Lady Eagles travel to Lewistown tonight to take on the Lady Panthers.
\nRhoades said his team has focused on taking a new attitude this season against Lewistown, which has not lost to Tyrone for 12 straight seasons dating back to 1994.
\n\u201cWe want to break the streak this year. That\u2019s been our mindset and it\u2019s a goal of ours,\u201d said Rhoades. \u201cSo hopefully Monday we can play a complete game with the kind of defense we need to win.\u201d
\nTYRONE 54 UNITED 45
\nUNITED 3 8 10 24 \u2013 45
\nTYRONE 11 11 14 18 \u2013 54
\nUNITED \u2013 Ginnis 0 0-0 0; Montgomery 2 2-3 6; Oliver 1 0-0 2; Merle 2 0-1 4; Fuller 2 2-2 6; Bloom 6 3-4 15; Warfel 0 0-0 0; Jones 0 4-6 4; Perry 3 1-2 6. TOTALS: 16 12-18 45.
\nTYRONE \u2013 Tepsic 5 3-4 13; Christine 1 3-4 5; Corle 1 6-8 10; Turiano 2 0-0 4; Garbinsky 2 4-4 8; Faretta 2 2-2 6; Emigh 2 4-6 8; Kobuck 0 0-0 0; Harden 0 0-0 0; Waite 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 15 22-30 54.
\nTHREE-POINT GOALS: Tyrone 2 (Garbinsky 2); United 1 (Perry)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After Saturday\u2019s 54-45 victory against United in the consolation game of the Williamsburg Tipoff Tournament, the Tyrone Lady Eagles had put together back-to-back games in which they led by double-figures by halftime. Now the trick becomes playing the last eight minutes as well as the first eight. Tyrone led the Lady Lions 22-11 at intermission, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}