Pioneers knock off Northern Lebanon, remain alone in 1st in Section 3
JEFFREY REINHART jreinhart@LNPnews.com
If this is beginning to sound like a broken record, it should.
Lampeter-Strasburg won another girls’ basketball game on Monday night – the Pioneers’ 11th victory in a row.
Knowing a loss would slip them back into a first-place tie, L-S took care of business, drilling upstart Northern Lebanon 62-39 in an L-L League Section 3 game in Lampeter.
The game was a whole lot closer than the final score indicated, believe it or not.
When Northern Lebanon’s Shelly Erb drilled a 3-pointer on the Vikings’ second trip of the third quarter, it knotted the game at 29-all.
But L-S dug deep, taking the punch and answering with a couple of haymakers, using a back-breaking 14-1 run to grab a 43-30 lead on Kelsey Souders’ bank shot in the key with 2:14 to go in the third.
Timeout, Vikings.
L-S improved to 6-0 in Section 3 and to 11-1 overall. The victory also did two other things: First, it kept the Pioneers alone in first place in the section, a game ahead of Donegal (5-1), which topped Elco 50-38 behind Nicky Hess, who hit seven (yeah, seven) 3-pointers and pumped in 27 points in the Indians’ victory.
Secondly, with 11 victories, L-S can now finish no worse than .500, which means the Pioneers locked up a spot in the District 3 Triple-A playoffs. They were the No. 1 seed in that bracket last season.
“We don’t really think about what position we’re in,” said L-S senior Katie Lynch, who scored 8 points and grabbed 7 rebounds against Northern Lebanon. “We just want to go out and have fun, play well and win.”
L-S has done that the last 11 games in a row, taking on and defeating all comers.
Northern Lebanon rolled into Lampeter riding a five-game winning streak, and a victory would have put the Vikings (4-2, 7-5) in a first-place tie with the Pioneers, who were coming off an emotional 69-50 showdown win last Friday at Donegal.
L-S was a tad sluggish at the start of Monday’s game, showing some signs of a hangover after the big win over Donegal just three days earlier.
“We were nervous about a letdown coming off the Donegal game, and we knew Northern Lebanon was playing well,” L-S coach Matt Wieand said. “They were coming in here going for first place. Thankfully we woke up after halftime and played like we needed to play. We challenged the kids, and they responded.”
Big time.
L-S couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean in the first half, yet despite a slow start, led 15-11 after the first quarter. Renee Fritz scored 6 of her game-high 20 points in the first quarter to get the Pioneers going.
Northern Lebanon point guard Liz Houser, who up to that point was doing a pretty good job handling the Pioneers’ full-court D, picked up her third foul with 29.2 seconds to go in the first quarter, and spent the rest of the half on the pine.
But the loss didn’t completely sting the Vikings, who outscored L-S 15-14 in the second quarter behind sharpshooter Nichole Heister, who hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored 7 of her team-high 13 points in the second quarter, which ended with the Pioneers narrowly ahead 29-26 at recess.
“We came out pretty slow and our shots weren’t falling,” Lynch said. “At the half we were only up by 3, and we talked about picking it up. We’re usually a good third-quarter team, and I thought we came out and played a little tougher. They only scored 13 points in the second half, so our defense helped us win this game. We played really good team defense.”
Particularly after Erb splashed a 3-pointer from the left wing to tie the game at 29-all early in the third quarter. Not only did L-S respond with a devastating 14-1 run, but the Pioneers tightened the clamps defensively, holding the Vikings to just four field goals the rest of the way.
“The 14-1 run was clutch,” Wieand noted. “That was huge. It took some pressure off of us for sure. That was big.”
Northern Lebanon scored 8 points in the third quarter and just 5 in the fourth, and L-S won going away, with Fritz scoring 8 second-half points to lead the way.
Fritz added 9 rebounds and blocked 2 shots, Danielle Rittenhouse grabbed 8 boards and scored 11 points, Souders chipped in with 10 points and Lisa Boyer scored 9 points for L-S, which turned the ball over just 12 times, while forcing the Vikings into 24 turnovers.
“Northern Lebanon came out and played its ‘A’ game in the first half; they played really well and it was a 3-point game at the half,” Wieand said. “We talked about our effort, and that our effort wasn’t where it needed to be, especially on defense. We were falling for some ball fakes and they were getting some easy buckets. So we wanted to come out in the second half and crank up the effort on defense. And we were able to do that, and hold them to 13 points in the second half. So the effort on defense was much better in the second half.”
End result: Win No. 11 in a row, still sole possession of first place, and a date in Districts.
NOTABLE: L-S out-rebounded Northern Lebanon 45-36. … The Vikings had won 7 of their last 8 games coming in; the lone loss in that clip was a 60-43 crossover setback to Lancaster Catholic. … Leah Wilhelm chipped in with 11 points for the Vikings, who hit five 3-pointers – three by Heister, raising her season total to 17 treys. … Fritz has 43 points in her last two games; she scored a career-high 23 points in the win over Donegal. Her previous best was 21 points in a crossover game against Columbia last season on Jan. 15, 2008.
