CURWENSVILLE – After sweeping its Moshannon Valley League rivals in December, the once-beaten Harmony High School girls basketball team started the second round in equally impression fashion with a 63-35 victory over winless Curwensville in Patton Hall Monday night.
The Lady Owls\’ fullcourt, man-to-man, pressure defense was too much for the Lady Tide, which was guilty of 19 turnovers in the first half and 27 through three quarters before Harmony coach Chris Priester called off the press and had his team drop back into a zone.
\”We didn\’t handle (the press) very well,\” Curwensville coach Vic Gearhart said. \”All we needed to do was, whoever got the ball, just be patient, let our other girls clear the floor and give themselves some place to work.
\”In the first half, we just put the ball on the floor immediately, dribbled into double-teams and gave them some easy baskets. We need to become better ballhandlers.\”
The Lady Owls, a veteran squad with seven letterwinners, buried 16 shots, shooting 40 percent, in building a 39-20 cushion by intermission, with four coming on putbacks as they collected eight offensive rebounds.
\”We didn\’t box off at all in the first half,\” Gearhart said, though conceding better boardwork might not have mattered. \”They shot extremely well. They hit shots I really don\’t think they\’re capable of (making) on a regular basis. For some reason, our gym is pretty friendly to visiting teams. It\’s just a comfortable place to shoot.\”
The rims weren\’t so friendly for the Lady Tide, which made only three of 27 attempts in the second half to finish 10-for-45, 22.2 percent.
Much like the first meeting, a 62-27 loss, Curwensville got off to a good start.
After Lady Owl Kierstyn Kruise opened the scoring, Alesia Bressler and Holly Fink hit from short range and Tess Bloom swished the first two of her 10 successful free throws to give the Lady Tide a 6-2 edge with 4:44 left in the first period.
Harmony retaliated with eight points from four different players in the next 1:27 and widened the lead to 19-11 at the first rest stop. Alyson Leyo netted all 10 of the Lady Owls\’ points as they began to make it one-sided at 29-13 with 4:27 left in the half.
The hosts never could make a run, managing back-to-back baskets only once the rest of the way.
Leyo scored 19 points, just under her season average, to pace Harmony, which is 5-0 in the MVL and 11-1 overall. Megan Brink and reserve Lindsay Neff chipped in with 12 and 10, respectively.
Bloom had 12 points and Fink 10 for Curwensville.
\”We talked about not getting into a running game, and that\’s exactly what it turned into,\” said Gearhart, whose struggling team is 0-4 in the MVL and 0-11 for the season. \”We\’re not built to be that kind of a pace team. We needed to slow it down and limit their opportunities. It just became too much of a rat race for us.
\”I did think our effort was better in the second half, defensively. I even saw people going after loose balls and boxing out a little bit better.
\”This is an improvement over the first time we played them, but it\’s not where we\’d like to be. We certainly wanted it to be a tighter game than it was.\”
The Lady Tide travels to Ridgway for an Allegheny Mountain League game Wednesday and hosts Sheffield in a non-league test Friday. Ridgway, which lost 54-43 to Harmony Thursday, is 0-14.
HARMONY — 63
Alyson Leyo 7 4-5 19, Megan Brink 5 2-2 12, Kierstyn Kruise 3 0-1 6, Emily Leyo 0 0-2 0, Christine Harkleroad 1 0-0 3, Lindsay Neff 4 0-0 10, Mackenzie Kruise 3 0-1 7, Alaina Westover 1 1-2 3, Shandell Clark 1 0-0 3. TOTALS: 25 7-13 63.
CURWENSVILLE — 35
Hannah Walls 1 0-0 3, Tess Bloom 1 10-14 12, Mindy Desmett 0 0-0 0, Alesia Bressler 3 1-2 7, Holly Fink 5 0-0 10, Jenessa Stiles 0 0-0 0, Jenea Stiles 0 0-0 0, Sarah Robb 0 0-0 0, Shayla Buzard 0 2-2 2, Ashley Bracken 0 0-0 0, Courtney Bachelier 0 0-0 0, Taylor Bumbarger 0 1-2 1. TOTALS: 10 14-20 35.
Three-Point Field Goal – Harmony 6 (A. Leyo, M. Kruise, Harkleroad, Neff 2, Clark); Curwensville 1 (Walls).
Score by Quarters:
Harmony 19 20 17 7 — 63
Curwensville 11 9 7 8 — 35
Officials: Rich Gormont, Bill Zupich, Tim O\’Connor.