Hometown Sports
Don't Miss

Juniata girls top rival East Juniata in prime time contest

 

COCOLAMUS – After struggling through three quarters of play, a fourth quarter surge on both offense and defense carried Juniata to complete the two game regular season sweep over cross county rival East Juniata by the final score of 34-28 in Tri-Valley League girls basketball action Friday evening.

Heading into the fourth quarter, Juniata had only managed to score 13 points for the evening. Then in the final frame, the Indians scored more points in the period than the first three quarters combined with 21 points in the period.

It started with Mackenzie Bennett who did not score at all for the entire first half of the game, came alive in the fourth quarter scoring 10 points in the frame and all 13 of her total points in the second half.

Joining her was Regan Lowrey who scored all of her points exclusively in the second half as well with a total of 11 points. Eight of those points came in the fourth quarter.

Things got rolling in the fourth for the Indians and managed to take a 26-20 lead heading with a 1:50 remaining in the game.

However, the Tigers were not going to go away quietly as they battled back as they found an open Lexie Stuck in the corner who proceeded to knock down a three ball to make it 26-23.

But then Lowrey went on the run and was left unattended and made a lay-up to put Juniata up 28-23. Then Grace Hibbs responded and answered with a mid-range jumper to cut the lead down to 28-25.

With less than a minute left to play, Lowrey got herself onto the foul line and dropped both of her free throws to extend it to a 30-25 lead.

Once again though East Juniata refused to let Juniata get away as again the Tigers found an open Stuck in the corner and knocked down another big three pointer to make it 30-28.

But late shots by both Lowrey and Bennett helped close out the Tigers and secure the win. Juniata outscored East Juniata 21-11 in the final quarter.

The first three quarters of the game were much different than in the fourth quarter as neither Juniata or East Juniata were really able to get its shots to fall.

In fact both teams scored a combined 15 total points for the whole first half of the evening with the Tigers scoring eight points while the Indians only had seven.

To make things worse for the Indians, was that they found themselves having some foul trouble with Ava Shearer who scored all four points in the opening period, also had two fouls on her in the frame as well.

For the Tigers, they were led by Hibbs who scored a team high of nine points while Sara Brackbill and Stuck each added another six points for the evening.

Juniata is now (14-6, 12-3) will travel to play Newport on Tuesday. Meanwhile East Juniata (9-9, 5-8) will travel to battle it out with the Greenwood Wildcats on Saturday.

Juniata 34, East Juniata 28
JUNIATA
Haley Mummah 0 1-2 1, Mackenzie Bennett 5 1-4 13, Regan Lowrey 4 2-2 11, Talon Walton 1 0-0 3, Ava Shearer 3 0-1 6, Anna Mae O’Brien 0 0-0 0, Shalelyn Armstrong 0 0-0 0. Totals: 13 4-9 34
3-point goals: Bennett 2, Lowrey, Walton
EAST JUNIATA
Lexie Stuck 2 0-0 6, Cypress Feltman 1 0-0 2, Sara Brackbill 2 2-7 6, Marissa Coudriet 2 1-2 5, Grace Hibbs 3 3-5 9. Totals: 10 6-14 28
3-point goals: Stuck 2
Score by quarters
J 4-3-6-21 – 34
EJ 7-1-9-11 – 28

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.