Most teams in the position of the Tyrone Lady Eagles might have doubts as they approach their first District playoff game tonight at Hollidaysburg Senior High School.
\nAfter all, at 11-13 the Lady Eagles haven\u2019t had the greatest success against playoff-caliber teams this season, and they\u2019re facing the No. 4 seed, a team that, on paper, should be good enough to advance to inter-districts.
\nBut this game is different. Not only are the Lady Eagles unlike your run-of-the-mill 11-13 squad \u2013 eight of Tyrone\u2019s losses have come to AAAA 2 seed Hollidaysburg, AAA 1 and 2 seeds Lewistown and Bellefonte, and AA 2 seed Bishop Guilfoyle \u2013 but they are familiar with their first round opponent. And they have proof positive that Bishop McCort is a team they can play with.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t have to wonder if we can beat this team,\u201d said Tyrone coach Jim Swaney, whose Lady Eagles defeated the 18-6 Lady Crushers 56-54 on December 16 in the Hollidaysburg Golden Tiger Roundball Classic.
\nTyrone led the Lady Crushers by as many as 19 points in their earlier meeting, and made big plays down the stretch to stave off a McCort rally that featured heavy doses of full-court pressure that no doubt will play a major role in tonight\u2019s game.
\nHow the Lady Eagles handle the pressure will tell the tale of how long they keep their playoff carriages from turning into pumpkins. In December, in the face of McCort\u2019s full-court press, Tyrone committed 15 turnovers, but came close to cracking only once, during the third quarter, when the Lady Crushers chopped a 19-point lead down to five.
\nIn that period, Tyrone turned the ball over eight times, but regrouped to commit only three turnovers in the first 7:30 of the fourth quarter.
\nSwaney feels the emergence of Emily Ingle as floor leader and No. 2 option at point guard behind Emily McKenna makes the Lady Eagles even more difficult to press now.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no comparison between Ingle now and Ingle in December,\u201d he said. \u201cIn December, she was still a little hesitant to help run things from the point, but that\u2019s not the case now.\u201d
\nSwaney said the Lady Eagles have worked on several wrinkles in their press break packages, including looking to get leading scorer Hilary McNelis more involved as a facilitator rather than strictly a finisher. That has meant moving her into the backcourt in their zone press breaks and even having her work as an inbounder.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s one player who can throw the ball 90 feet, so that gives us some options,\u201d said Swaney.
\nBut if Tyrone is to win and advance to the second round, McNelis will have to be more than a facilitator. Instead, she will have to be every bit the dominant post player she\u2019s been for the last two seasons, amassing nearly 800 points in 48 games.
\nAt 16.3 points per game this season, McNelis has steadily led the Lady Eagles offensive attack while other younger, more inexperienced players were feeling their way around. Over the last nine games, other players have begun to make an impact on the scoring books, but it\u2019s difficult to imagine a scenario in which the Lady Eagles could make a strong playoff push without McNelis \u2013 who scored 22 last time against McCort \u2013 playing big.
\nMcKenna will have to play big as well, not only as a scorer \u2013 where she\u2019s averaging 12.5 points per game \u2013 but as the first option against McCort\u2019s press.
\nMcCort, meanwhile, when not scoring off turnovers, does its best damage when it can work its inside-outside game with 6-foot senior Jessica Mock and guards Rachel Price and Shannon Yingling. Mock was a non-factor in December, hampered throughout the game with fouls, but the Lady Crushers\u2019 big run in the third and fourth quarters was a direct result of hot shooting by Price and Yingling, who combined on 21 of McCort\u2019s 36 second-half points.
\n\u201cPrice scored 21 on us last time and Yingling had 11, so we have to get those numbers down,\u201d Swaney said. \u201cThey\u2019re a very good team. We\u2019ll need to give 110 percent to win.\u201d
\nSwaney said he liked his team\u2019s mental makeup, despite the fact that this group is playing its first playoff game together. McKenna and McNelis both bring experience from 2003, when the Lady Eagles made their last postseason appearance, but the six to eight other players that could find themselves in the game tonight have never played in a District-level playoff contest.
\n\u201cI would like to tell our team that this is a regular game, but it\u2019s not,\u201d Swaney said. \u201cIf you lose, you don\u2019t go back to practice and get ready for the next game. You go home. I will be very interested in seeing how our kids perform when the bright lights are on them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most teams in the position of the Tyrone Lady Eagles might have doubts as they approach their first District playoff game tonight at Hollidaysburg Senior High School. After all, at 11-13 the Lady Eagles haven\u2019t had the greatest success against playoff-caliber teams this season, and they\u2019re facing the No. 4 seed, a team that, on […]<\/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-43531","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\/43531","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=43531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}