This was one that the young Lady Blue Devils had in their grasp and let slip away. Battling Williamsburg, who has nine returning letterwinners and lots of depth, the Bellwood-Antis girls had the Lady Pirates on the ropes, leading by four points 41-37 with just 2:28 to play.
Williamsburg ran off five straight points to retake the lead 42-41, before Liz Erickson hit one of two foul shots to retie the game at 42-42. That was the last hurrah for the Lady Blue Devils however. Experience took over. Williamsburg outscored the B-A girls 8-3 from that point on, with a basket and foul shot on a conventional three-point play by Erickson all the scoring Bellwood-Antis could muster.
Bellwood-Antis spent much of the game trying to catch up, but to their immense credit, the Lady Blue Devils refused to allow Williamsburg to get any momentum going. The Lady Pirates jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first quarter, only to have Bellwood-Antis close the score to 10-8 at the end of the quarter when Ashley Lechner drained a trey.
In the second stanza, down 12-8, Victoria Lombardo chucked in a basket and Erickson hit back-to-back buckets to give the Lady Blue Devils a 14-12 advantage, although Williamsburg scored the last six points of the quarter to take an 18-14 lead at halftime.
Heather Rhule pumped in a three-pointer to begin the third quarter that put Williamsburg up 21-14, but the Lady Blue Devils spent the rest of the quarter whittling away the seven-point deficit, finally taking a 26-24 lead when Amanda Ingram put up a soft jumper with 50 seconds remaining for the first Bellwood-Antis lead since the 4:04 mark of the second quarter.
Brooke Zimmerman, who led Williamsburg with 16 points, sank two free throws to tie the score, but Erickson hit the second of two from the line with no time on the clock to send Bellwood-Antis into the fourth quarter with a 27-26 margin.
Williamsburg took a 28-27 lead and built it up to 35-29 before Alycia Hippo hit a jumper. Lombardo added a bucket to close to within 35-33. Williamsburg tried to put the game away, but a putback and two foul shots by Shalee Hunter gave the Lady Blue Devils a 38-37 lead. Chelsea Young buried a three-pointer for her only points of the game to give the B-A girls a 41-37 advantage with 2:28 left.
“We were playing not to lose when we got the four point lead, instead of to win,” explained Bellwood-Antis coach Ali Stodart. “Up by four with about two minutes and 30 seconds left, we kind of let up a little defensively. That was what got us got us back into the game originally. We turned up the defense. I think that lack of experience in that situation hurt us. We were playing not to let them score, instead of turning up the pressure even more. Williamsburg had to push and we let them get in there pretty easy.”
The Lady Pirates, who also came from five points back with four minutes left to defeat Mount Union on Tuesday night, improved to 5-1 in the Juniata Valley League, 6-2 overall. Danielle Peck added nine points for Williamsburg and Amy Speacht scored seven points.
Bellwood-Antis (1-6) is off until next Thursday, when the Lady Blue Devils will play Northern Bedford on the first night of the Lady Blue Devil Classic at 7:30. Moniteau will play Northern Cambria in the first game which will start at 6 p.m.
Junior Varsity
The Williamsburg junior varsity routed the Lady Blue Devils JayVees in the preliminary game 60-28.
Ashley Fay led Williamsburg with 17 points and Jordan Hileman added 10 points.
Alycia Hippo led Bellwood-Antis with eight points and Amanda Ingram scored seven points.
Williamsburg 50 Bellwood-Antis 45
Williamsburg – Zimmerman 3 8-8 16, Peck 4 1-1 9, Wyland 1 3-4 5, A. Speacht 1 0-1 3, Mingle 3 0-0 7, Rhule 2 2-5 5, L. Speacht 1 1-2 3, Hileman 0 0-2 0. TOTALS 15 15-23 50.
Bellwood-Antis – Webb 1 0-0 2, Young 1 0-0 3, Lombardo 2 0-0 4, Lender 0 1-3 1, Lechner 1 0-0 3, Hunter 3 2-2 8, Erickson 5 6-13 16, Hippo 1 1-2 3, Ingram 2 0-0 5. TOTALS 16 10-20 45.
Williamsburg 10 8 9 24 – 50
Bellwood-Antis 8 6 12 19 – 45
Three-point goals Williamsburg 5 (Zimmerman 2, A. Speacht, Mingle, Rhule).
Bellwood-Antis 3 (Young, Ingram, Lechner).
