When you consider the teams the Tyrone Lady Eagles have faced in the first month of the season, their 5-4 record isn’t all that bad.
\nAfter all, two of their losses have come against Quad-A teams, another to a Triple-A District 6 finalist from last season and the other was to always-tough Bishop Guilfoyle.
\nBut within the context of each individual game, the opportunity to win has been there for the Lady Eagles, mostly because they’ve defended as well as any team Swaney has coached in his 15 seasons at Tyrone.
\nAccording to Swaney, victory in those situations has eluded them, more often than not, because of the team’s inability to control the ball with the game tight.
\nFurther proof of that came Saturday in the finals of the Souderton Holiday Basketball Tournament against Quad-A Souderton.
\nThe Lady Eagles rallied from deficits of 10 points in the first quarter and seven at halftime to lead by two, 50-48, with possession of the ball and 1:40 left in the game. They turned the ball over twice in that span of time, allowing Souderton to tie the game and eventually win it in overtime 62-58.
\n\u201cWe’re working hard to win these games, but turnovers are making us work harder than we need to,\u201d said Swaney. \u201cIf we can’t control the ball in those situations, we can’t be a good team. The ball in our hands isn’t important enough to us yet.\u201d
\nThe Lady Indians pressured Tyrone with a match-up 1-3-1 defense most of the game, but with Tyrone leading late Souderton was forced to pick the Lady Eagles up person-for-person. Tyrone went into its spread offense, knowing that if it protected the ball, Souderton would be forced to foul.
\n\u201cIn that situation, we knew what they were going to do,\u201d said Swaney. \u201cWe’ve got to understand in that situation that we have to control the ball better.\u201d
\nFor the game, Tyrone turned the ball over 26 times. Souderton coughed it up on 24 occasions.
\n\u201cIt was a sloppy game and we played well to a point,\u201d Swaney said. \u201cIn the first quarter I expected us to turn the ball over some because we hadn’t seen their defense before. But you figure it’s going to slow a little bit as the game goes on.\u201d
\nMarie DelBaggio led Tyrone with 22 points and 10 rebounds and was named to the All-Tournament team. Joanna Turner scored 17 and pulled down 10 boards before fouling out with four minutes left in regulation. She also earned an All-Tournament selection.
\nThe Lady Eagles trailed 12-2 in the first quarter but battled back to outscore the Lady Indians by seven in the second half, after surrendering 33 in the first.
\n\u201cFor us to give up 33 points in a half is uncharacteristic,\u201d said Swaney. \u201cOur defense turned it up a notch in the second half. We’ve done more on defense than I would have hoped for at the beginning of the season.\u201d
\nTyrone worked its way into the championship game by way of a 52-43 win over West Chester East in the first round. Turner led the Lady Eagles in that one with 17 points and 10 rebounds, while DelBaggio scored 14 points to go along with seven boards. Sophomore Hilary McNelis added 12 points and seven rebounds.
\nAll in all, it was a nice win for a team that spent 5-and-a-half hours on a bus and had just 10 minutes at their hotel to get settled before heading to the gym.
\n\u201cWe didn’t play our best game, but all things considered, it was a win,\u201d Swaney said.
\nThe Lady Eagles led West Chester 25-24 at halftime but stormed out of the locker room to take a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter.
\nTyrone is now off until facing Central at home Saturday as the front end of a girls-boys varsity double header against the Dragons. The Lady Eagles open the night at 5 p.m. with the boys game to follow.
\nThe Tyrone Basketball Hall of Fame will induct its fourth class in between the two games. Slated for induction are Craig Fleming, Sarah Grazier and Meagan DelBaggio.
\nHOOP NOTES: Marie DelBaggio is averaging 13.5 points over her last six games….Turner has been held below double-figure scoring just twice this season….both the Lady Eagles and Golden Eagles lost in last season\u2019s Tyrone-Central doubleheader in Martinsburg, with each losing on last second shots.
\nCHAMPIONSHIP GAME
\nSOUDERTON 52, TYRONE 58
\nTYRONE – M. DelBaggio 10 2-3 22; Turner 8 1-2 17; A. DelBaggio 3 0-1 8; Haag 4 0-0 9; McNelis 0 2-2 2; McKenna 0 0-0 0.
\nTOTALS: 25 5-8 58
\n3-POINT GOALS: A. DelBaggio (2), Haag (1)
\nSOUDERTON – Swartz 0 0-0 0; Tagliaiatela 1 0-0 2; V. Houseal 2 3-4 7; L. Houseal 7 6-8 20; Sparks 4 2-2 10; Wentz 6 4-5 16; Lancaster 2 3-4 7. TOTALS: 22 18-23 62
\nScore by Quarters
\nTYRONE \t\t13 13 13 12 7 – 58
\nSOUDERTON \t\t18 15 10 8 11 – 62
\nFIRST ROUND
\nTYRONE 52, WEST CHESTER EAST 43
\nTYRONE – M. DelBaggio 6 0-0 14; Turner 5 7-9 17; Haag 2 0-0 4; A. DelBaggio 2 0-0 6; McNelis 6 0-0 12; McKenna 1 0-0 2; Bryan 0 0-0 0; Wallace 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 22 7-9 52
\n3-POINT GOALS: A. DelBaggio (2), M. DelBaggio (2)
\nWEST CHESTER EAST – Simmons 6 3-3 15; Touey 4 1-1 9; Holleran 3 0-0 6; Chupein 4 0-0 8; Grigsny 1 2-2 4; Rudolff 0 1-3 1; Cullihan 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 18 7-11 43
\nScore by Quarters
\nTYRONE \t\t13 12 13 17 – 52
\nW. CHESTER \t\t13 11 6 13 – 43<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you consider the teams the Tyrone Lady Eagles have faced in the first month of the season, their 5-4 record isn’t all that bad. After all, two of their losses have come against Quad-A teams, another to a Triple-A District 6 finalist from last season and the other was to always-tough Bishop Guilfoyle. But […]<\/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-47589","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\/47589","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=47589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}