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Lady Raiders give Tyrone a fight before falling late

BELLEFONTE – Going into Wednesday night’s match up against Mountain League leader Tyrone, the Bellefonte girls knew they would have to play tough defense and try to slow down the Golden Eagles multi-faceted offense to score the upset win.
For the most of the night, the Lady Raiders were within striking distance of Tyrone but didn’t have the fire power to make a run, falling 43-29.
“Tyrone had their spurts and that was the difference. They had little runs on us but they are a good team,” Bellefonte coach Adam Gearhart said. “I don’t think they shot very well. We wanted to limit them to one shot and for the most part we did.”
Bellefonte was led by Lauren Young’s 12-point and 17-rebound effort. Teammate Abbie Carr finished with eight while collecting seven rebounds and five blocks.
Bellefonte pulled down 41 total rebounds.
Tyrone got a game-high 15 points from Alexis Cannistraci. Teammate Kasey Engle chipped in 11 in a winning effort.
From the very beginning both defenses took center court as the two teams combined for a total of 15 points.
Tyrone opened the scoring on a inside runner by Emily Lehman just 15 seconds into the game.
Both defenses exchanged possessions for the next two minutes.
The Lady Raiders took the lead on a Young bucket and free throw as she went right at the heart of the Golden Eagle defense.
A quick cut in the middle by Cannistraci minutes later put Tyrone back in the lead, 4-3.
Back came Bellefonte when Abbie Bruni hit a jumper inside the key, taking back the lead.
However, Tyrone went on a 4-2 run to take the slim 8-7 advantage going into the second period.
While putting pressure on the Bellefonte front court, Tyrone opened the period on a 13-1 run.
In that run, the Golden Eagles were led by Lehman and Cannistraci who both netted four points each in the run. Mia Kosoglow’s triple got the quarter off and running for the visitors, 23-8.
But the Lady Raiders showed they weren’t going to be intimidated by the tough Tyrone team as they finished with a mini run of their own, scoring six consecutive points to put them in striking distance and bringing the game deficit to single digits at 23-14.
“There was a couple times the press got us and they got a few buckets on that,” Gearhart said. But I can’t be upset with my girls for their effort. Our defense has been carrying us through most of our games and tonight it did once again. But there was just those two little spurts where they got us.”
In the third, Tyrone’s offense was back at it again, going on a 6-0 run of their own to up the Golden Eagle lead to a 29-14 lead.
Again, back came Bellefonte when they took over the final five minutes of the period scoring seven out of the final nine points in the stanza.
Going into the final stanza, the Red Raiders were able to cut the Tyrone lead to 10.
Bellefonte opened the quarter with a Young lay up to cut the lead to under 10, 31-23.
But the Golden Eagles were able to fend off anything the Lady Taiders threw at them as they went onto the 43-29 victory.
In the Junior Varsity contest, the Red Raiders battled from being down in the fourth quarter before losing in the final seconds on a late Tyrone free throw with three ticks left.

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