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MOUNT CARMEL--Three years ago, Keeley Baker had never yet played basketball.
Friday night, she nearly led Lewisburg to the Class AAAA state tournament.
Baker showed how far she has come during her scholastic basketball career, scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 rebounds while helping Lewisburg erase an eight-point deficit and tie Shamokin late in the third quarter.
It was nearly a fairy-tale like ending, but Carly Nye scored four points during the final minute, broke the tie and helped Shamokin win the third-place game, 32-28 at Mount Carmel High School. Shamokin (19-7) will play District 2 champion Dunmore in Wednesday’s opening round of the state tournament. Lewisburg’s season ended, but Baker is one of many players returning and showed why both her and the program’s futures appear bright.
"Keeley Baker worked extremely hard," Lewisburg coach Brent Sample said. "She just started playing basketball three years ago and she’s really come a long way."
Baker, a junior forward, is a standout goalie in field hockey and lacrosse. She is quickly becoming a good basketball player, too, and was a force inside against Shamokin. Baker scored 10 of her 12 points off of offensive putbacks and gave Lewisburg momentum after Shamokin had built a 15-6 first-quarter lead.
She scored six of her team’s seven points as it pulled within 15-13 midway through the second quarter. Shamokin pushed the lead to 21-14 at halftime but Lewisburg’s defense formed a green wall throughout the second half and every player Sample used started asserting themselves as the Dragons fought back.
Lewisburg (10-15) scored eight straight points and tied it 26-26 late in the third, with Baker’s fifth putback sparking the run. Freshman Maria Bozella drained a 3-pointer and when Maddie Still went coast-to-coast for a layup, Lewisburg had pulled even with Shamokin for the first time since the game was scoreless.
"The whole season we used the defense to propel the offense," Sample said. "After the first couple minutes we calmed down. We worked the ball around and did a good job attacking."
Lewisburg never was able to take the lead and a 5-of-16 foul shooting performance haunted it. Still, the Dragons had a chance to win in the final minute because its defense was so good. Lewisburg allowed just 11 second-half points and only five field goals over the final three quarters. Because of that, the game was still tied entering the final minute after Sophie Kilbride (5 rebounds, 3 steals) hit a mid-range jumper and made it 28-28.
Lewisburg was trying for the lead when freshman Delilah Nazih made her fourth steal and found Nye streaking toward midcourt. Nye attacked the basket, converted a layup and gave Shamokin a 30-28 lead with a minute remaining. Lewisburg put up two quality shots in the last 20 seconds, but both were just off the mark.
Nye, a sophomore who scored nine points, then clinched the win, calmly draining two free throws with 4.6 seconds left and capping the scoring.
Like Lewisburg, Shamokin is a young team and started all underclassmen. This could become a good rivalry the next few years with two of the three games they played this season being determined by five combined points. And for Lewisburg, earning this experience, one that included a road win at No. 3 seed Athens, could prove huge.
A team with barely had a preseason before being shut down early in the year overcame a lot this season. That included being decimated by injuries. The 2017 Lewisburg team experienced something similar and also finished fourth in the district. Most of that team returned the next season, captured the HAC-II championship, won 20 games and reached the district final.
Time will tell if history repeats itself, but a strong foundation is in place, one which could be bolstered by an incoming freshmen class which lost just one game this past season.
Maybe what happened this season was just a start.
"I told the girls use this as a stepping stone for next season. We started 0-5 and we’re kind of behind the 8-ball and had a lot of injuries and a lot of covid this year but the girls really worked hard."
LEWISBURG (28)
Sophie Kilbride 1 1-2 3, Keeley Baker 6 0-2 12, Sydney Bolinsky 0 1-6 1, Anna Baker 0 2-4 2, Maddie Still 2 1-3 5, Maria Bozella 2 0-0 5, Elsa Fellon 0 0-0 0. Totals 11 5-6 28.
SHAMOKIN (32)
Carly Nye 2 4-4 9, Delilah Nazih 2 1-4 5, Madi Lippay 2 1-2 5, Desiree Michaels 4 2-2 10, Amanda Wetzel 1 0-0 3, Ally Waugh 0 0-0 0. Totals 11 8-11 32.
Lewisburg 6 8 12 2--28
Shamokin 15 6 5 6--32
3-pointers: Lewisburg 1 (Bozella); Shamokin 2 (Nye, Wetzel)
Records: Shamokin 19-7. Lewisburg 10-15.