Lady Rams show tons of heart in loss against sharpshooting Eagles

By Kenny Varner Jr.
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: February 21, 2020

Tyrone 69, Penns Valley 42

PV 9 12 9 12 -42

TY 13 22 17 17 – 69

Scoring: Tyrone -Stephanie Ramsey 5 6-6 20, Lindsay Fusco 1 0-0 2, Shannon Shaw 5 0-0 11, Emma Getz 6 2-6 17, Jaida Parker 7 0-0 17, Kayelin Gibbons 01-2 1, Maci Brodzina 0 1-3 1. Totals 24 10-17 69. Penns Valley – Lydia Collison 1 0-0 2, Hannah Montminy 2 2-4 7, Kaitlyn Romig 1 1-1 3, Leah Beben 1 0-2 2, Kailen Winkleblech 6 0-0 14, Kennedy Welshans 7 0-1 14.Totals 18 3-8 42.

Played but didn’t score: Tyrone – Allison Weston 0 0-0 0, Chesney Saltsgiver 0 0-0 0, Laura Kohler 0 0-0 0.

Penns Valley – Cassandra Ulmanic 0 0-0 0. Avery Dinges 0 0-0 0.

Three-point shots: Tyrone – Ramsey 4, Shaw 3, Parker 3. Penns Valley – Montminy, Winkleblech 2..

By Kenny Varner

TYRONE – David met Goliath Thursday night as the top seeded Tyrone Golden Eagles went against the spunky group from Penns Valley in the second round of the District 6 Class AA girls basketball playoffs.

After defeating ninth-seeded Mount Union earlier in the week, the Rams were looking to knock off the experienced and deep bench of the Golden Eagles.

Led by senior Hannah Montminy, Penns Valley gave it a valiant effort keeping to within in striking distance halfway through the third quarter before a late run by the explosive offense of Tyrone heated up.

In the end, the Rams fell to Tyrone 69-42, ending their season.

But the effort that Penns Valley played with made their coach proud of the effort despite the loss.

“Tyrone’s a great shooting team. They always have been and when they get hot they get hot. But our effort was there all night,” said Penns Valley Coach Terrance Green. “We played hard for 32 minutes and you can’t be mad about that. It’s just unfortunate. When a team gets hot there is not much you can do but play defense and make buckets on the other end.”

The Eagles opened the game going on a quick 11-0 run. It was sparked by two triples by Stephanie Ramsey.

With such a quick strike offense, the Rams called a time out to regroup.

As the Tyrone defense was mirroring and sometimes double teaming Montminy, that opened up the floor for her teammates to step up. And step up they did, battling back from the deficit going on a run of their own.

On consecutive trips down the court, the Rams got the ball to Kaitlyn Romig as she hit a runner in the lane and was fouled in the process. She also hit the free throw, getting Penns Valley on the scoreboard with 4:41 left in the quarter.

Kennedy Welshans scored the next two buckets for the Rams as she hit a jumper in the middle and then a runner in the lane, cutting the lead to 11-7 with 3:10 left.

The bucket forced Tyrone to call a time out.

Penns Valley got to within a bucket when Leah Beben pulled down a crucial rebound and put it back up.

However, Tyrone got the last bucket of the quarter after a strong defensive stand by Penns Valley.

Jaida Parker’s jumper, ended the first quarter scoring at 13-9.

“We take pride in the heart that we play with. That’s what we do. We don’t back down from anybody,” Green said. “We don’t get down if we if the other team is on a run like Tyrone was up 11-0. We cut it to 11-9 and we held them scoreless for about 4 minutes until they ended the quarter with a bucket.”

Like in the first, Tyrone jumped out again on a run to start the quarter, this time the Eagles opened up on a 5-0 charge.

Penns Valley again called a quick time out.

Coming out of the time out, Kailen Winkleblech pulled down another offensive board and hit to follow up. Winkleblech finished the game with a team-high 14 points. She and Welshans led the way with 14 points apiece. The Rams finished with 28 boards led by Beben’s eight rebounds.

Floor leader Montminy was held in check finishing with just seven on the night.

But Tyrone would extend the lead as it went into the intermission, leading 35-21.

Tyrone was led by Ramsey with 20 while teammates Parker and Emma Getz finished with 17 each. Rounding out the double-digit scorers was Sammi Shaw with 11.
Coming out of the break, the Rams up its tempo on both sides of the ball and were quite successful, cutting the Tyrone lead to 10 with five minutes left.

But that would be as close as the Rams would get on this night as Tyrone lit it up from beyond the arc and underneath, en route to the 27-point victory.

The loss, ended the stellar career of Montminy as she finished her career as on of the top scorers in Penns Valley history, hitting over the 1,000-point mark earlier in the season.