HAZLETON — Hazleton Area High School’s McGeehan Gymnasium is a nice enough place. Lots of seating, nice people.
But oh, those rims.
At least as far as teams from around here are concerned, Hazleton’s gym is a house of horrors.
Last year, Mount Carmel shot 15.6 percent (7-for-45) from the floor in a season-ending loss to Dunmore.
Saturday, after getting off to a good start, Lourdes shot 7-for-41 (17 percent) over the final three quarters in losing to Old Forge 50-38 in a PIAA Class A quarterfinal. Overall, Lourdes shot 22.6 percent (12-for-53). The Red Raiders were solid from three-point range (7-for-23), and awful from everywhere else (5-for-30).
Making it more frustrating, this was an eminently winnable game for the Red Raiders. Last year, you got the idea that Mount Carmel had little chance against Dunmore. That wasn’t the case Saturday. Lourdes had a 13-9 lead at the end of the first quarter and led 23-22 at the half.
Had the Red Raiders (20-8) made a few chippies in the first half, they might have had a 6- to 10-point lead. Even late in the fourth quarter, trailing 37-31, had the Raiders made a key bucket or two, they’d have had a decent shot at winning.
Old Forge (15-10), the District 2 champion, will play District 6 fourth-place finisher Portage in Wednesday’s semifinal round. Portage beat District 4 champion North Penn-Mansfield 43-39.
“We did not shoot the ball well at all,” Lourdes coach Mike
Klembara said. “For us to be successful, we have to shoot well. I thought the girls played hard throughout the game but we got in foul trouble and then number 45 (Tori Tansley) took over. She went at us every time down there, and if I were her coach, I’d have been telling her to do exactly that.”
Tansley, a force in the middle, matched her scoring average with 17 points and added 12 rebounds. She did most of her damage in the second half after Lourdes’ Caity Funk, who watched her defensively, picked up four fouls and eventually fouled out, as did Krissy Komara.
Tansley was Old Forge’s only player to score in double figures, but the other four starters and sixth player Kierstyn Breig each scored between four and eight points.
“We never got into any kind of rhythm, in the first half and especially in the second half,” Klembara said.
Old Forge spent most of the game in a zone but also showed flashes of man, the latter designed to put their best defensive players against Carmella Bickel to keep her from driving the lane as she did so successfully in a second-round victory over Williams Valley.
Bickel took just three shots in the first half, but she countered with six assists, many to freshman Selina Albert, who had 11 points in the half.
But Albert didn’t score at all in the second half and Bickel, who finished with 13 points, had no assists in the second half.
“They forced her and Bailey out far from the three-point range, and they were good enough athletically in a lot of cases that we couldn’t get around them,” Klembara said.
Both teams were sluggish to start the second half, but Old Forge finally scored a basket for a 24-23 lead, its first of the game. Lourdes shot just 1-for-13 in the third quarter as the Blue Devils built a four-point lead by the end of the frame.
The Blue Devils also had a 35-22 rebounding advantage overall, and began asserting themselves as the game started to slip away from Lourdes. In addition to Tansley’s 12 rebounds, four other Blue Devils had at least four rebounds.
“We didn’t do a good job of weak-side rebounding in the second half,” Klembara said.
Trell finished with 10 points, while Albert paced Lourdes on the glass with seven rebounds.
“I don’t think anyone envisioned us being here back in November, including me,” Klembara said. “Any time a coach can say that about a team, you’ve had a great season, and it’s gratifying to see.”
Game Summary
PIAA Class A Quarterfinals
At Hazleton Area H.S.
OLD FORGE (50) — Verespey 3 2-3 8, Yesnowski 1 4-4 7, Tagliaferri 1 2-4 5, Tansley 5 6-9 17, Pascolini 2 1-2 6, Breig 1 2-2 4, Renna 0 0-0 0, Nocera 0 0-0 0, Florovito 1 0-0 3, Pepsin 0 0-0 0, Desando 0 0-0 0. Totals 14 17-24 50.
LOURDES (38) — K. Komara 1 0-0 2, Trell 4 0-0 10, Bickel 3 5-7 13, Funk 0 2-2 2, Albert 4 0-0 11, Krebs 0 0-0 0, Khanna 0 0-0 0, M. Komara 0 0-0 0, Dobson 0 0-0 0, Kulick 0 0-0 0, Baskin 0 0-0 0, Milewski 0 0-0 0. Totals 12 7-9 38.
Old Frg (15-10) 9 13 11 17 — 50 Lourdes (20-8) 13 10 6 9 — 38
3-point FGs: Yesnowski, Tagliaferri, Tansley, Pascolini, Florovito, Trell 2, Bickel 2, Albert 3