Susquehanna players and coaches received their gold medals after winning the District 2 Class A girls’ basketball championship at the Mohegan Sun Arena to earn a spot in the state tournament (Tom Robinson Photo)
WILKES-BARRE TWP. – The Susquehanna boys’ basketball team had a dual purpose when the majority of the players traveled to the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza for Thursday afternoon’s District 2 Class A girls’ game.
“I told them they needed to be here, not only to support our girls, but they needed to see the arena and get a feel for the environment so they weren’t in awe when they walked in for the first time,” Sabers coach Lawrence Tompkins said Friday after his team completed a Susquehanna sweep of the district’s Class A basketball championships.
The Lady Sabers qualified for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state tournament when they fought past Forest City, 34-28, Thursday in what was also a District 2-11 Class A Subregional semifinal.
The game opened the three-day, 12-game series of championships in the second year that District 2 conducted its finals at the arena, which is home to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins American Hockey League team.
The Sabers, who had been eliminated from state consideration with a Subregional quarterfinal loss a week earlier, wrapped up their season as district champions with Friday’s 55-32 rout of MMI Prep.
“Having the double district title; I can’t be happier with what’s going on with the girls’ program,” Tompkins said. “We won the boys’ title five years ago, which was very big for our program.
“What they are doing and piggybacking on that, I think might have motivated us a little bit.”
CLASS A GIRLS’ BASKETBALL FINAL
WILKES-BARRE TWP. – Lady Sabers coach Errol Mannick came up with a new defensive wrinkle to win a grueling season series with Forest City and claim the program’s first district title since 1996 and first ever as a District 2 member.
Susquehanna held Forest City without a field goal for a 10-minute stretch of the first half to improve to 3-2 against the Lady Foresters and 2-1 in playoff games.
Forest City came in with the edge because it had won the two most recent meetings, including the Lackawanna League Division 4 all-season championship game to trump Susquehanna’s win in the division first-half championship.
But with the district title and a state tournament spot on the line, the Lady Sabers took charge with their defense.
Freshman center Mackenzie Steele, who led the defensive effort by setting a record for blocked shots in an arena championship game with nine, stopped short of declaring the Lady Sabers the better team.
“I kind of think we’re a pretty good matchup,” Steele said.
They were such a good matchup that even though Susquehanna never trailed, it also could not get comfortable until the closing seconds.
Mackenzie Hartman’s second 3-pointer of the fourth quarter and third of the game brought the Lady Foresters within 33-28.
They did not score again.
“We definitely had more energy on defense and we didn’t let them do what they were good at,” Taylor Huyck said.
Using an inverted triangle-and-two defense throughout, the Lady Sabers matched up with Hartman and Kendra Bendyk.
They held Hartman, who had scored 24 in the all-season division championship game, to half of that. They limited Bendyk, who had 16 points in the first half of last year’s district final at the arena, to just five points, none in the second half.
Steele made sure the Lady Sabers were not vulnerable to the openings playing such a combination defense can create. She handled the back row of the zone portion of the defense herself, swatting away seven shots in the second half when Forest City shot just 4-for-23 from inside the 3-point arc.
“We made that switch today, which worked really well,” Mannick said. “It allowed us to keep Mackenzie Steele in the back. It allowed us to force Hartman and Bendyk to take super hard shots, if anything at all.
“Then, you force other people to make shots that aren’t used to doing it.”
Susquehanna used different players on Hartman and Bendyk, each with the goal of making sure they got “nothing easy; nothing uncontested,” according to Mannick.
Steele’s presence in the back helped hold the whole thing together.
“It makes it a lot easier,” Mannick said. “That’s actually one of the plusses of us running that is that it keeps her closer to the basket.”
Mannick said he never wants to hold Steele back to avoid potential foul trouble because she has the proper instincts to be a dominant shot-blocker.
“She just has to go out and play the way,” he said. “She knows how to play. She’s a high-level player.
“I trust her 100 percent.”
The defense held Forest City to 10-for-51 (19.6 percent) shooting overall from the floor.
Huyck finished with 10 points, 5 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Steele added 8 points, 13 rebounds and 2 steals to her 9 blocked shots. Taylor Williams added seven rebounds and three steals.
Hartman had 12 points and 4 assists while Skylar Fortuner had 13 rebounds for Forest City.
Bendyk scored on an in-bounds play 1:45 into the game to force the only tie at 2-2.
The Lady Foresters then went 10 minutes without a basket.
Susquehanna scored eight straight points to take a 10-2 lead late in the quarter on a 3-pointer by Williams and three points by Huyck.
Forest City closed to within 10-9 midway through the second quarter, but Forest City had just two field goals over the next 11:12.
Susquehanna led 14-12 at halftime and took a 24-18 lead into the fourth quarter on a 3-pointer by Mackenzie Heath with 16 seconds left in the third.
Hartman’s 3-pointers got Forest City within 26-23 with 5:32 left and 33-28 with 1:12 to play.
Huyck converted her own rebound into a three-point play in between and the Lady Sabers held the Lady Foresters scoreless after Hartman’s last 3-pointer.
Williams hit the front end of a one-and-one with 39.8 seconds left to close the scoring.
Forest City finished 15-11.
Susquehanna lost Friday night in the District 2-11 Class A Subregional final, 36-26, against Pottsville Nativity at Scranton Prep to fall to 14-13.
CLASS A BOYS’ BASKETBALL FINAL
WILKES-BARRE TWP. – As one of only two Class A teams in District 2, Susquehanna and MMI Prep got a free pass into the championship game.
Once at the arena, however, the Sabers put on a show worthy of a championship to wrap up a strong finish to the season.
Tyler Williams and Mason Deakin combined to hit 15 of 22 shots while scoring 20 points each and Susquehanna got an early spark from its defense to overwhelm MMI Prep in the boys’ final.
“We can’t control the enrollment; we can’t control the fact that state went to six classifciations; and we can’t control that we’re the only two teams left in single-A,” Tompkins said. “We knew at the start of the year that we were going to be here and so was MMI unless one of us won the Subregional.
“We looked at it as an opportunity that only 12 boys’ teams have. We’re going for a gold medal and saying you’re a district champion is something you’ll remember forever. When you have an opportunity to win one, why not win one?”
The Sabers battled the Preppers all season in a close race to see which qualified for the District 2-11 Subregional and had lost to MMI Prep in the playoffs a year ago.
With an aggressive defense making an impact early, Susquehanna dominated a championship game that had generally been expected to be a much closer matchup.
Tompkins said the Sabers concentrated on getting in the passing lanes against a patient MMI offense.
“I felt like one of the things we wanted to do was take that and get easy baskets,” Tompkins said after Susquehanna turned steals into layups four times in the first quarter for a 17-6 lead. “We felt like shooting was going to be an issue in a big gym with a little different surroundings.
“We were trying to get easy baskets, using that defense to turn it into offense. We really did an awesome job of that.”
And, when the defense wasn’t making it easy, the offense still did just fine.
Williams shot 8-for-11 from the floor and 4-for-4 from the line. Deakin was 7-for-11 from the floor. Garret Grausgruber made two of his three 3-point attempts while adding 11 points.
“We got a lot of fastbreaks, made layups and that’s what got us the fast start,” said Williams, who had two of his three steals in the first quarter.
The Sabers never slowed down.
They put together several streaks to keep extending the lead.
Susquehanna scored the game’s first six points in the opening 2:10.
Deakin had the first six points and eight total during a nine-point streak to a 15-4 lead with 38 seconds left in the first quarter. Two of Deakin’s baskets came off his own steals and another came off a steal and assist from Williams.
The streaks allowed the Sabers, who finished 9-15, to win for the sixth time in the last 10 games after suffering through an eight-game, mid-season losing streak.
“Our mindset every game is that defense comes first,” said Deakin, who also had five assists and three steals.
Williams scored off his own rebound with a second left for a 17-6 lead after one quarter. The Sabers then added the first seven points of the second quarter, making it nine straight total, with the help of a 3-pointer by Grausgruber and another Williams basket.
Deakin had five points and Williams four, including one basket off a steal and feed from Deakin, as the Sabers used the last six points of the first half and the first seven of the second for a 13-point streak and 37-18 lead with 4:51 left in the third quarter.
“I feel like this was definitely one of my better games,” Deakin said. “I just had the adrenaline rush from coming in here.”
Bryce Baldwin, Adam Rockwell and Grausgruber also contributed to the defense. Baldwin had all of his game-high eight rebounds on the defensive end, Rockwell blocked two shots and Grausgruber made two steals.
Phillip Byriel, a 6-foot-7 freshman, led MMI (5-18) with nine points, seven rebounds and six blocked shots.
CLASS 2A BASKETBALL FINALS
WILKES-BARRE TWP. -- The Elk Lake girls and Mountain View boys each lost in Class 2A championship games to traditional district powerhouses.
Old Forge won its seventh district title in the last nine years when it held off a late Elk Lake comeback for a 42-35 victory in Friday afternoon’s girls’ championship game.
Holy Cross, which is headed to the state tournament for the 10th straight year, routed Mountain View, 46-18, in Saturday afternoon’s boys’ final.
Elk Lake trailed by 14 points in the second quarter and 12 in the fourth quarter, but came within four points late.
Kierstyn Breig, who scored a game-high 17 points, drove for two straight baskets to double Old Forge’s lead and put an end to the comeback attempt.
Justine Johns led Elk Lake with 13 points, 15 rebounds, 5 steals and 4 assists. Keri Jones also scored 13 points.
Johns had six points and Jones the other five during the 11-3 run to close within with 38-34 with 2:39 to play.
The Lady Warriors were hurt by 27 turnovers, including 18 in the first half when Old Forge opened a 19-5 lead before settling for a 20-11 advantage at the break.
Abby Johns finished with seven rebounds for Elk Lake.
Keiran Burrier had 14 points and 8 rebounds for Holy Cross and also contributed 5 steals to a defense that limited Mountain View to the lowest point total of any of the 20 championship games played over the first two seasons at the arena.
The Crusaders held the Eagles to one field goal on 14 attempts in the second half.
Mountain View managed just six points after halftime as top-seeded Holy Cross expanded on a 25-12 halftime lead.
Matthew Lavin and Mikey Schermerhorn had eight points each to lead Mountain View, which is 11-7 since opening the season with seven straight losses. Alex Showalter led the team in rebounds (five) and assists (three).
Holy Cross, which has qualified for the state tournament in every year of the school’s existence, scored first and never trailed.
The Crusaders opened a 22-7 lead midway through the second quarter with the help of a 13-2 run. They kept the lead in double figures the remainder of the game.
REGIONAL WRESTLING
Susquehanna County wrestlers were unable to come up with a win while having their seasons end in the Class 2A Northeast Regionals in Williamsport.
Elk Lake’s Jacob Hand lost two decisions by a total of 11 points at 170 pounds.
Montrose’s Joseph Hester also lost two decisions, one a major and the other by four points, at 126.
Fred Lewis from Blue Ridge went the distance in his 120-pound quarterfinal, but was pinned in the first round of consolations.
DISTRICT SWIMMING
Michael Pettit finished third in the 200-yard freestyle in 1:55.2 Friday to lead Elk Lake’s efforts at the District 2 Swimming Championships, which continued through Saturday at the Wyoming Valley CYC in Wilkes-Barre.
The Warriors scored 114 points to finish sixth out of 14 teams.
Wyoming Seminary won the title with 262 points.
Pettit was also seventh in the 500 freestyle.
Austin Dalaway took seventh in the 100 freestyle.
Elk Lake placed fourth in the 200 freestyle relay and seventh in the 200 medley relay.
The Lady Warriors scored 45 points to finish eighth out of 18 teams.
Dallas won its third straight team title.
Louise Thompson had Elk Lake’s top individual effort, taking ninth in the 100 freestyle. She also had one of the teams three individual 10th-place finishes while Lydia Ofalt had the other two.
Elk Lake was seventh in both the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays.
THE WEEK AHEAD
Preparation for spring high school sports began Monday.
Three county basketball teams continue into the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state basketball tournaments.
Elk Lake (14-11) opens Friday at Troy at 7 in a Class 2A girls game against District 4 champion Sayre (22-3).
Susquehanna (13-12) plays Saturday at 4 at North Pocono High School against District 4 runner-up Benton (20-5) in Class A girls.
Mountain View (11-14) heads to Mansfield University Saturday at 4:30 to face District 4 runner-up Northeast Bradford (15-10) in Class AA boys.
TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can be reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com or followed on Twitter at @tomjrobinson.
