Teams playing the unbeaten Lewistown Lady Panthers have two choices, and neither have been good through 17 regular season games.
The first is to grind out each offensive possession to slow the game down and limit the Lady Panthers’ touches. But that means you’d better make the few shots you take because there aren’t many teams as effective transitioning from offense to defense as Lewistown.
The other choice looks appealing when you see the Lady Panthers play defense: run with them and go shot-for-shot because you’ll get open looks against Lewistown’s defenders. That means you’d better have between 60 and 70 points somewhere in the tank.
Tyrone chose the latter last night in Mifflin County, and became the fifteenth of 17 opponents unable to hold the Lady Panthers under 60 points. Senior Jenny Cunningham scored a career-high 26 points as Lewistown throttled the Lady Eagles 82-41 to improve to 17-0 (8-0 Mountain Athletic Conference Section II).
The Lady Panthers’ 82-point total was a season-high, after cracking the 70-point mark six times. Lewistown connected on 53 percent of its shots from the field and received scoring contributions from 11 different players.
Needless to say, Tyrone’s defense – a certain bright spot all season – was a concern for Lady Eagle coach Jim Swaney.
“I’m disappointed with our defense,” said Swaney. “When we don’t score, we tend to break down in other areas. When we played them in Tyrone (a 60-44 loss), we dominated their guards, but we didn’t do that tonight.”
Instead, Lady Panther guards had a field day from the perimeter, combining for 39 points, and they were able to consistently knock down open outside shots when Tyrone collapsed on Lewistown’s inside scoring tandem of Cunningham and Jenna Craig.
Brittany Stauffer led the Lady Panthers’ guards with 14, after struggling against the Lady Eagles in December.
But the success of the Lady Panthers’ shooters was a direct result of the attention Tyrone paid to their posts. Along with Cunningham’s career game, the 6-foot Craig added 14 points, and the duo dominated the glass on both ends of the floor.
Tyrone (7-10, 2-7 MAC) shot just 27.5 percent from the field (16 for 58), including stretches in the first and second quarters when they missed nine and eight consecutive shots, respectively.
“Their defense doesn’t take many shots away,” said Swaney. “We had open looks but we shot very poorly. That’s not to take anything away from Lewistown because they are very good.”
Cunningham and Craig combined to score all of Lewistown’s 20 first quarter points as the Lady Panthers built a 14-point lead, but it was in the second quarter when Lewistown displayed the kind of shooting that earned it a spot in last year’s PIAA Class AAA championship game. The Lady Panthers made 9 of 13 shots in the period, including a string of eight baskets in nine attempts during a 16-1 run that had them up 40-12 with 2:40 left in the first half.
Until the fourth quarter, Tyrone was able to string together baskets on consecutive offensive possessions only once, and that came early in the first quarter when Hilary McNelis and Stefani Bryan made shots to tie the game at 4-4 at the 6:25 mark.
McNelis led Tyrone with 16 points and five rebounds, while Emily McKenna added 12 points, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Lewistown started the third quarter by running off eight in a row, and threw in a 12-0 run to start the fourth quarter for good measure.
Until last night, Tyrone’s single-game worst for points allowed had been 60, against the same Lady Panthers last month. Last night, Lewistown had 61 by the third quarter and never looked back.
Lewistown 82 Tyrone 41
TYRONE – McKenna 4 3-4 12; Ingle 1 0-2 3; McNelis 7 2-2 16; Hoover 1 0-0 2; Bryan 2 0-0 5; Bradford 0 0-0 0; Roth 0 1-2 1; Turiano 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 16 6-10 41
LEWISTOWN – Craig 7 0-0 14; Searer 3 0-0 6; Stauffer 6 0-0 14; Cunningham 11 4-6 26; Krepps 1 5-6 7; Spickler 1 0-0 2; Wilson 1 0-0 3; Kodish 1 0-0 2; Rhoades 2 0-0 5; Casner 0 1-2 1. TOTALS: 34 10-14 82
Score by Quarters
1 2 3 4 T
TYRONE 7 9 10 15 –41
LEWIST 20 22 19 21 –82
3-POINT GOALS: Tyrone 3 (McKenna 1, Bryan 1, Ingle 1) Lewistown 4 (Stauffer 2, Wilson 1, Rhoades 1)
JUNIOR VARSITY
Tyrone’s junior varsity team lost to the Panthers 63-31, despite a game-high 17 points from sophomore Liz Tepsic.
The Lady Eagles fell behind 17-3 in the first quarter, and trailed 43-14 by halftime. Ten different players scored for Lewistown, while only four made Tyrone’s scoring column.
LEWISTOWN 63 TYRONE 31
TYRONE – Tepsic 7 3-6 17; Turiano 3 0-0 7; Garbinsky 0 0-0 0; Christine 0 0-0 0; Russell 2 0-1 4; Walker 0 0-0 0; Corle 1 0-0 3; Bartlebaugh 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 13 3-7 31
LEWISTOWN – King 3 0-0 8; Wilson 3 1-3 8; Rhoades 1 0-0 2; Smith 1 0-0 2; Wray 0 3-4 3; Pecht 3 2-2 8; Spickler 7 0-0 14; Zimmerman 3 0-0 6; Casner 3 4-5 10; Bobb 0 2-2 2. TOTALS: 24 12-16 63
Score by Quarters
1 2 3 4 T
TYRONE 3 11 7 10 – 31
LEWIS T 17 26 7 13 – 63
3-POINT GOALS: Tyrone 2 (Corle 1, Turiano 1) Lewistown 3 (King 2, Wilson 1)
