Tyrone coach Jim Swaney remarked on occasion through the first 15 games of what was becoming an ever-frustrating season that all that really stood between the Lady Eagles and a 12-3 record was about five digits on their shooting percentage.
\nSimply put, Tyrone had not shot the ball well, so despite the team\u2019s penchant for defense, any close game that came down to making a basket at the end usually went the other way.
\nThat\u2019s why last night\u2019s 60-59 non-conference win on the road against Dubois could ultimately be looked at as a turning point if the Lady Eagles can turn around their season.
\nWith the score tied at 58 with less than 30 seconds remaining, senior Hilary McNelis made a jumper from the foul line for what turned out to be the game-winning basket when Dubois leading scorer Kelsey Wilcox missed the back end of a one-and-one with three seconds to play.
\nWith the win, the Lady Eagles improved to 7-9 and won their first game on the road since December 28 at the Blairsville Christmas Tournament. McNelis led Tyrone with 26 points and 10 rebounds, while Emily McKenna scored 19, including five three-pointers, in her best performance since scoring 19 in a win over Huntingdon January 4.
\nThe Lady Eagles built an eight-point lead by halftime, but were forced to come from behind in the second half thanks to outstanding performances by Wilcox and Kaitlyn Fairman, who combined to score 38 of the Lady Beavers\u2019 59 points. Wilcox led the way with 22, while Fairman added 16.
\nBut Wilcox, who averages over 17 points per game, couldn\u2019t come through when the game was close late, and Tyrone was able to win despite surrendering its second-highest point total of the season.
\nTiffany Bradford had tied it at 56-56 late in the fourth quarter before Wilcox made two foul shots to tie it. That set up the game-winner by McNelis, who was one of six Tyrone players to score.
\nThe Lady Eagles hit seven three-pointers, including one from Bradford and one from sophomore Stefani Bryan.
\nHOOP NOTES: Dubois fell to 6-10 \u2026 Tyrone will travel to Lewistown Friday. The Lady Panthers beat Tyrone 60-44 in December \u2026 the Lady Eagles are now 2-3 in games where McNelis scores over 20 points \u2026 the loss was Dubois\u2019 second straight to a MAC school, after dropping a game to Bellefonte on Monday.
\nTyrone 60 Dubois 59
\nTyrone – McKenna 6 2-2 19, Ingle 1 0-0 2, McNelis 11 4-6 26, Hoover 0 0-0 0, Bryan 2 0-0 5, Roth 1 0-0 2, Long 0 0-0 0, Bradford 2 1-1 6. TOTALS 23 7-8 60.
\nDubois – Snyder 2 0-0 4, Senior 1 0-0 2, Speicher 2 0-0 4, Wilcox 7 6-8 22, Fareman 7 2-4 16, Cribbs 3 1-2 9, Newcamp 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 23 9-14 59.
\nScore by Quarters
\nTyrone 18 17 11 14 – 60
\nDubois 16 11 15 17 – 59.
\nThree point goals: Tyrone 7 (McKenna 5, Bradford 1, Bryan 1).
\nDubois 4 (Wilcox 2, Cribbs 2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyrone coach Jim Swaney remarked on occasion through the first 15 games of what was becoming an ever-frustrating season that all that really stood between the Lady Eagles and a 12-3 record was about five digits on their shooting percentage. Simply put, Tyrone had not shot the ball well, so despite the team\u2019s penchant for […]<\/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-43663","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\/43663","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=43663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}