DUBOIS – Knocking Brockway out of a first place tie in the Allegheny Mountain League South Division Friday gave the upstart Curwensville Area High School girls basketball team an opportunity to create a three-way tie for the top spot Monday night.
The challenge for the Lady Tide was to make a monumental turnaround against perennial champion or co-champ DuBois Central, which had rolled 67-25 in their previous meeting on Jan. 6.
Curwensville, victorious in three of its last four games, fell behind by 14 points in the turnover-filled first half but rallied to within six points or less on three occasions in the final 9:17.
The cold-shooting Lady Cardinals staved off the Lady Tide’s upset bid, though, to prevail 45-34 in Patton Hall and continue their streak of finishing first or tied for first in the AML-South every year since the league split into two divisions when Curwensville and Sheffield were added prior to the 2004-05 season.
Both teams were led by their point guards, senior Lauresa Gulvas scoring 20 points for the Lady Cardinals and freshman Ciara Strickland tossing in a career-high 16 for the Lady Tide. Sophomore Kylee Schaffer chipped in 11 points for DuBois Central (7-9).
“You just try to contain Gulvas,” Curwensville coach Rusty McCracken said. “She’s a good player. She hustles. She’s quick. And she does a lot of things.
“She had a lot of touches off our dribble, whether she got the steal or not. She disrupted us a lot on their press. She wasn’t always pressing, but she always was there to cause trouble for our dribblers.”
The 1-2-2 zone trap by Gulvas and her teammates gave the Lady Tide fits in the first half, when the hosts were guilty of 24 of their 38 turnovers. Eleven came in the second period when Curwensville (5-10) got off only five shots.
“We haven’t seen that many turnovers in a long time,“ McCracken said. “I’m not sure it was due to their pressure or just us not seeing each other real well and throwing bad passes. We hit their hands a ton of times, and sometimes we just threw the ball out of bounds.“
A trio of steals that resulted in layups for Gulvas jump-started the DuBois Central Catholic offense and stemmed a promising start by Curwensville.
Becca Johnson’s one-hander from the left side and Strickland’s length-of-the-floor drive were the only points in the first three minutes.
In their first 10 possessions, the Lady Cardinals missed seven shots, were called for traveling twice and had one off-target pass before Gulvas broke the ice with 4:49 left in the first period.
She followed up two baskets by Schaffer with a one-hander from the top of the key to complete a 12-point run and then tacked on two free throws and a jumper in the lane in the final 24 seconds to give DuBois Central Catholic a 16-8 advantage.
The Lady Cardinals threatened to make it a repeat runaway by stretching their lead to 22-8 midway through the second quarter.
Savannah Strickland netted Curwensville’s first points via two free throws with 2:29 remaining in the half, and Ciara Strickland lowered the deficit into single digits with a foul shot and a three-pointer from the left corner.
However, Gulvas answered with a trey from the right side. Then, Schaffer found Francesca Varischetti wide open for a bucket and followed up with one of her own to set the halftime spread at 29-15.
In addition to the large number of turnovers, loose ball recoveries and rebounding were problems for the Lady Tide at that point.
“They came up with every loose ball, and they got a lot of offensive rebounds,“ McCracken said. “That was a big difference.“
While the Lady Tide did a little better in all three departments during the second half, the Lady Cardinals were much more aggressive in tracking down balls on the hardwood as well as under the boards, especially on their own missed shots.
Curwensville wasn’t boxing out well on its defensive end, where DuBois Central Catholic pulled down 19 of its 34 rebounds.
In contrast, the Lady Tide had only two offensive rebounds in its total of 31.
“That’s not gonna do you any good, either,” McCracken said. “And then we got in some foul trouble on their putbacks.
“It just seemed like we made little strides and then went backwards a great deal.”
The Lady Cardinals did open the door for a Lady Tide comeback by going ice-cold in the third quarter, failing to connect on any of their 22 shots.
Becca Johnson’s two fast-break layups, one after her own steal, and Kealy Wassil’s two bank shots from the right side enabled Curwensville to close the gap to 31-25 going to the fourth quarter.
“I thought that would kind of pump up the girls even though we didn’t play well,” McCracken said. “We did hustle a little bit to make it respectable. We just didn’t take advantage of all our opportunities to pull that off.”
Curwensville closed to within 35-30 with 5:57 left when Johnson canned a three-pointer from the right wing and Ciara Strickland drove all the way for a lay-up after snaring a defensive rebound.
Later, the Lady Tide trimmed the Lady Cardinal lead to 40-34 when Strickland turned a steal into a bucket and hit a short push shot after another turnover with 2:28 showing on the scoreboard.
“You’ve got to give Ciara credit,“ McCracken said. “She’s getting a lot of attention from other people’s defenses now, and she keeps us in ballgames, whether it’s a good shot or a good pass or whatever. She does a pretty good job as a freshman running our offense when she needs to.”
Curwensville was unable to generate any more offense, though, and Alyssa Marchioni clinched it for DuBois Central Catholic when she picked up a loose ball near mid-court and drove for a layup with 1:03 to go.
“To be fair to the girls, we’re still a little under the weather,” McCracken said. “Savannah can’t play and Shope hasn’t eaten a lot the last four days. We’re depending a lot on young kids who don’t have a lot of varsity time.
“But they played hard. We didn’t quit. It’s a definite improvement on the last time we played them. We have to look at all the positives.”
One of those was junior Katrina Seaburn’s effort under the boards with 11 rebounds.
“Katrina’s always undersized, but she works hard and does her job,” McCracken said. “She gets down on herself sometimes, but I don’t think she realizes how good she is playing.”
The Lady Tide, whose 3-3 finish in the AML-South is their best in five seasons, are booked for a Moshannon Valley League game at West Branch Wednesday and an AML crossover game at Johnsonburg Friday.
In the prelim, Abby Dugo and Heather Thorp scored eight points apiece to lead the Curwensville junior varsity to a 26-19 win.
Final AML-South Standings – DuBois Central Catholic 5-1, Brockway 4-2, Curwensville 3-3, Ridgway 0-6.
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC — 45
Alyssa Marchioni 1 1-2 3, Aundrea Snyder 0 1-2 1, Lauresa Gulvas 8 3-4 20, Kylee Schaffer 5 1-2 11, Maria French 0 2-2 2, Francesca Varischetti 3 0-0 6, Gabby Ridenour 1 0-0 2, Julie Fitzer 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 17 10-14 45.
CURWENSVILLE — 34
Savannah Strickland 0 2-3 2, Tierra Shope 0 1-4 1, Becca Johnson 4 0-0 9, Ciara Strickland 8 1-2 16, Katrina Seaburn 1 0-0 2, Tiara Bumbarger 0 0-0 0, Kealy Wassil 2 0-0 4, Heather Thorp 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 14 4-9 34.
Three-Point Field Goals – DuBois Central Catholic 1 (Gulvas); Curwensville 2 (Johnson, C. Strickland).
SCORE BY QUARTERS
DuBois Central Catholic 16 13 2 14 – 45
Curwensville 8 7 10 9 – 34
Officials – Tim Barnes and Robert Burns.