MC girls knock off tough Milton Hershey team

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: December 19, 2023

By Dom Reed

LEWISTOWN – The Mifflin County girls hosted Milton Hershey at the Mifflin County High School gym Tuesday. Despite a late push by the Spartans, they could not come out on top falling to Mifflin County 57-46.

The Huskies were led by their top scorer Amelia Leister, piling up 17 points.

The senior did it a different way, none of her points came from the three point line. Leister totaled three two-points shot while the rest of her points came from the foul line making her 11-18 at the foul line. Early and often Mifflin County played well defensively. Rylee Retherford had two steals in the first two periods while Makenzie Peachey and Ciara Williams all had steals in the contest.

The Spartans were aggressive all game. In the third period with 7:58 remaining The Spartans cut the deficit getting to within five, making it 40-35. Milton Hershey’s Tarianda Washington,the senior forward, led her team in points putting up 26. Mifflin County separated themselves apart from the Spartans. Jaylee Bodtorf two three-point shots that would give Mifflin County a final spark leading the Huskies to a victory. The Huskies ended the night with four players finishing with double figures.

“We need to improve on getting down hill more. Just because we can shoot, we need to get downhill, we need to start making shots better to see what options we have.,” said Mifflin County coach Aaron Gingrich. “The first half we were a little bit sloppy. We got in foul trouble. We were settling for threes in the second quarter and we were unfortunately weren’t making them like we were in the second half. The key in this game was keeping your composure because they were really really aggressive. They play extremely hard. They foul a lot so we had to keep our composure. For the most part we did. We had to rebound well on the defensive end and we did that well enough to win and of course we had to knock down shots against their pressure. By the way they scramble on defense we were gonna have open looks. Fortunately tonight we had some kids knocking them down. Maelyn was really hot in the first half and Jaylee stepped up in the second half. It’s always nice to see four players in double figures for this team. Of course we did some things wrong. This is a somewhat an experienced team. We can grow from this win against a pretty solild Milton Hershey team who has won some nice games this year. So we will take it and get ready for a tough task at Cedar Cliff on Friday.”