Bellwood-Antis lost senior swing player Steph Hatch early in the game, at Bellwood on Wednesday night against Moshannon Valley. The rest of the Lady Blue Devils stepped it up a notch however to rout Mo Valley 54-32.
Hatch went down hard with 4:40 on the clock in the opening quarter. Hatch’s trey and another by Jamie Smith had the Lady Blue Devils up by three, 8-5.
“All five players that normally play varsity all stepped it up big time,” explained Bellwood-Antis coach Nick Lovrich. “That’s what we need to do when someone goes down, everybody else has to pick up their intensity, they have to pick up their play. That’s what happened. Jamie (Smith) hit some big shots, Lauren (Carter) did a great job inside. Allison (Sinisi) and Jenna (Ralston) were great defensively. Lindsey (Claar) started hitting the boards a little bit harder. That’s what made the game a little bit easier.”
From the time Hatch went out, Bellwood-Antis outscored the Lady Damsels 14-4 for the rest of the period to take a 22-9 advantage at the end of one stanza. Carter contributed two buckets and a free throw, Sinisi hit a basket on a rebound and putback and added a pair of foul shots, Smith bombed in another trey and Ralston threw in a bucket.
The two squads traded buckets in the early going of the second period, before two short jumpers by Carter began a 13-4 run that began late in the second quarter and continued through the opening minutes of the second half.
Moshannon Valley called a time out to stop the bleeding, but after The Lady Damsels scored the next two points, Bellwood-Antis used a trey by Smith and two baskets and two free throws by Carter to take a 49-19 lead.
With the Lady Blue Devil junior varsity playing the final minute of the third quarter and most of the fourth, Moshannon Valley was able to outscore B-A 11-5, after Bellwood-Antis had built their lead with 22-9, 13-6 and 14-6 scoring margins over the first three quarters.
“It was big for us to get a lot of players game experience,” said Lovrich. “We need to start to develop depth. I challenged the Jayvee players. I told them they need to step up and they need to start proving that they can play varsity basketball. This was a golden opportunity for them tonight. We saw some good things from some of the younger kids.”
Lauren Carter led the Lady Blue Devils effort with a double-double scoring 17 points and pulling down 10 rebounds along with two blocks and four assists. Lindsey Claar had six carooms, Jamie Smith pumped in 15 points , including four three-pointers, Allison Sinisi contributed eight points, five assists three steals and three boards and Jenna Ralston scored seven points.
Amy Tomasko led Moshannon Valley with 10 points and Molly Rebar and Megan Leskovansky each had six points.
Bellwood-Antis (2-2) travels to Mount Union on Friday for a MAC Juniata Valley Division contest. There will be no junior varsity game. The varsity will begin their game at 7 p.m.
Moshannon Valley took a 15-9 lead at halftime in the junior varsity game and stretched that into a 28-18 win over the B-A girls. Brittany Webb scored eight points and Shalee Hunter pulled down 14 rebounds to lead the Lady Blue Devils.
Kalyn Dipko led Mo Valley with seven points and Amanda McQuown added six points.
Bellwood-Antis 54 Moshannon Valley 32
Moshannon Valley – Leskovansky 2 2-4 6, V. Tomasko 1 0-0 2, Rebar 3 0-1 6, A. Tomasko 4 2-3 10, Bacher 1 0-0 2, Godin 1 0-0 2, Cook 1 0-0 2, Dipko 1 0-0 2, McQuown 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 14 4-8 32.
Bellwood-Antis – Claar 0 2-2 2, Hatch 1 0-0 3, Ralston 3 1-2 7, Carter 7 3-3 17, Smith 5 0-0 14, Webb 0 1-2 1, Young 0 0-0 0, Sinisi 3 2-4 8, Parson 1 0-0 2, Hunter 0 0-0 0, Riley 0 0-0 0, Myers 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 20 9-13 54.
Score by Quarters
Moshannon Valley 9 6 6 11 – 32
Bellwood-Antis 20 13 14 5 – 54
Three point goals: Moshannon Valley none.
Bellwood-Antis 5 (Smith 4, Hatch 1).
