The Bellwood-Antis girls basketball team traveled to West Branch to complete their Juniata Valley League schedule on Wednesday night. The Lady Blue Devils got a monster performance from Lauren Carter, who poured in 35 points and grabbed 20 rebounds to lead Bellwood-Antis to a 60-43 victory.
The B-A girls jumped out to an 18-12 lead after one quarter and then continued to build up their advantage in each of the next two stanzas. West Branch was able to match the Bellwood-Antis ladies in the fourth period, but couldn’t get any closer than the final score.
“The kids did pretty well, we started off and pretty much took control from the beginning,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Nick Lovrich. “Lauren (Carter) started off with a bunch of points and rebounds and our defense caused West Branch to make several turnovers.”
Carter’s scoring output was a personal high for the B-A senior who also scored 34 points earlier this season at home against Moshannon Valley and is just a point off the all-time Lady Blue Devils’ scoring record of 36, set by Jennifer Hunter against Glendale, during the 1990-91 basketball season. The 20 boards were four off the record 24, which Carter pulled down in December 2004 against Penns Valley.
“She had 21 points at halftime, and we kept reinforcing to the girls that we wanted to pound the ball inside,” said Lovrich about his senior six-footer, who is averaging 20.2 points per game. “Lauren played a great game, but just came up one point short of the record.”
Five-foot-ten freshman Liz Erickson contributed nine points and senior point guard Jamie Smith added eight to balance the Lady Blue Devils scoring attack.
“Lix has now put together two nice games in a row,” said Lovrich, “she is being more aggressive in going to the basket and that is paying rewards. Jamie Smith was getting some points to take the pressure off the big girls and making some great passes into Lauren.”
Bellwood-Antis (10-12 overall, 8-10 in the JVL) will close out their regular season with home contests against Bishop Guilfoyle on Saturday and Bald Eagle Area on Tuesday. On both occasions, the junior varsity game will begin at 6 p.m. with the varsity contests to follow at 7:30 p.m.
Junior Varsity
The Lady Blue Devils also won the junior varsity game, defeating the West Branch Jayvees 37-33.
Amanda Ingram led all scorers for Bellwood-Antis with 18 points
Jolene Weseky was the only Lady Warrior in double digits with 10 points.
Bellwood-Antis 60 West Branch 43
Bellwood-Antis – Webb 1 0-0 2, Lechner 0 0-0 0, Carter 13 9-13 35, Erickson 4 1-4 9, Smith 2 3-5 8, Ingram 0 0-0 0, Lombardo 0 0-1 0, Hunter 3 0-0 6, Parson 0 0-0 0, Riley 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 23 13-23 60.
West Branch – Howe 8 0-0 20, Larson 5 2-5 12, Parks 0 1-1 1, Modzel 1 0-0 2, Weseky 3 0-0 6, Houston 0 0-0 0, Couteret 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 18 2-6 43.
Score by Quarters
Bellwood-Antis 18 15 12 15 – 60
West Branch 12 10 6 15 – 43
Three-point goals: Bellwood-Antis 1 (Smith).
West Branch 4 (Howe 4).
