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Lycoming women fall in close contest to King’s by just 3 points at home

By Jon Gerardi 5 min read

All Lycoming needed was one more 3-pointer to fall. With just 13.5 seconds left, the Warriors knew they had one chance to make something happen and send everyone inside Lamade Gymnasium into a frenzy.

Coming out of the timeout, Lycoming got the inbounds pass and got the ball to Mya Wetzel on the far side of the court. Wetzel had a defender nearby, but put up a solid shot at a possible game-tying 3-pointer with barely any time remaining. But, unfortunately for the Warriors, the shot didn’t fall.

Instead, King’s was able to avoid overtime and a possible loss and instead escaped Lamade Gymnasium with a nail-biting 49-46 win against the Warriors on Wednesday evening.

“Execute, that’s a big word we use: execute. Energy. We knew we could do it (rally). The last like two plays myself and Mya (Wetzel), we both hit big 3s and that was part of execution. We followed the play correct,” Lycoming’s Meghan Dufner said. “I think a big thing about is it that we lose momentum for minutes at a time, which does not help us at all. When we got back in it, our energy came back up, so it was just a consistency thing.”

Lycoming gained momentum late when it needed to. After King’s Mackenzie Bennett hit a 3-pointer with 4:27 to play which put King’s ahead by eight, Lycoming slowly but surely kept clawing back and didn’t let King’s ge ta double-digit lead. While the Warriors hung around, they were never able to get that huge shot to fall in the fourth quarter to fall to tie the game or take the lead.

“We took 23 more shots than them. When the ball doesn’t go in the basket, you can’t do much,” Lycoming coach Christen Ditzler said. “You have to put the ball in the basket. … Everything’s good when the ball goes into the hoop and we could not score.”

The Warriors cut the deficit to just one point when Wetzel drilled a 3-pointer with just 13.5 seconds remaining. King’s was sent to the line just a second later and Cailin Wilson hit two big free throws to make it a 3-point lead, 49-46, with 12.3 to play. From there, Ditzer wanted the ball in Wetzel’s hands to hit the possible game-tying trey.

“We did (want to give it to Wetzel),” Ditzler noted. “I wanted a little quicker shot thinking ‘what if we don’t score?’ But it should never have come down to that because we had ample opportunities throughout the game to make layups. And we shot 5 for 21 from the 3, they shot 7 for 13. That’s a big difference.”

Dufner led Lycoming with a 15-point performance, the Warriors’ only player to reach double figures. Kenzie Reed and Wetzel each scored nine and Ashley Yoh had a team-high 10 rebounds.

“She (Dufner) just works so hard out there. I can’t say enough good things about her in terms of what she brings to the table,” Ditzler said. “She took a lot of shots, her shots didn’t fall, but I ask her to do a lot from everything to defense to offense and she’s really improved from last year to this year, really improved. She just does a really good job.”

The Warriors opened the game on a 13-0 run and led by 15 points with 2:01 to play when Reed hit two free throws for a 17-2 lead. But King’s never backed off and kept playing its game and battling back. By the end of the second quarter, it was just a four-point deficit as Lycoming held a 25-21 lead.

“At halftime we just had a discussion. We were like ‘we should be in this game. There’s no reason that we should let them pull away,'” Dufner said. “We knew that we should have won, but we are young, which doesn’t help. At the same time, it’s a learning experience. Shot selection is a big thing that we’ve been working on at practices.”

No King’s player reached double figures, although 10 did score at least three points. Lauren Casey had a team-high nine.

King’s switched its defense at the end of the first quarter into the second quarter, and both Dufner and Ditzler noted that it helped enable King’s to rally back after trailing by 15.

“When we went up on them early and they then called a timeout and just increased the defensive intensity, that’s when we tended to throw the ball away,” Ditzler said. “We turned the ball over way too many times for a team that sat in a half-court defense. But it was a very intense switching defense where they didn’t give us a lot of openings. And they certainly shut down the middle. They’re not going to let Emily Lockard get very many easy touches.”

“I think when they stepped up their pressure in like the end of first quarter, beginning of second (was tough),” Dufner added. “That kind of frazzled us. So just couldn’t get into our groove after that.”

KING’S (3-12, 2-5 MAC FREEDOM)

Lauren Casey 4-9 1-2 9; Kathy Shepherd 2-7 1-2 7; Kiersten Krouse -3 4-4 4; Brenna Costello 1-2 4-6 7; Caileigh Costello 2-4 0-0 5; Juleesah Hines 1-4 1-2 3; Mackenzie Bennett 1-1 1-2 4; Gianna Dickson 1-3 0-0 3; Cailin Wilson 1-5 2-4 4; Deanna Wallace 1-2 0-0 3. Totals 14-40 14-22 49.

LYCOMING (5-10 1-5 MAC FREEDOM)

Emily Lockard 3-7 0-0 6; Kami Abdo 1-3 0-0 3; Mya Wetzel 3-12 0-0 9; Meghan Dufner 6-19 2-3 15; Ashly Yoh 1-6 0-0 2; Kenzie Reed 2-3 5-6 9; Alicia Goldenziel 0-2 0-0 0; Mia Rudalavage 1-2 0-0 2; Jillian Pumputis 0-7 0-0 0; Victoria Burton 0-2 0-0 0; Maddie Orich 0-0 0-0 0.; Francine Bacon 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 17-63 7-9 46.

King’s 9 12 13 15 — 49

Lycoming 17 8 7 14 — 46

3-point goals: King’s 7-13 (Shepherd 2-6, B. Costello 1-1, C. Costello 1-2, Bennett 1-1, Dickson 1-1, Wallace 1-1, Krouse 0-1), Lycoming 5-21 (Wetzel 3-12, Abdo 1-2, Dufner 1-3, Pumputis 0-4). Fouled out: King’s-none; Lycoming-none. Rebounds: King’s 30 (Casey 8), Lycoming 46 (Yoh 10). Assists: King’s 11 (Krouse 3, B. Costello 3), Lycoming 11 (Dufner 4). Technical fouls: King’s-none; Lycoming-none. Total fouls: King’s 14, Lycoming 18. A: 243.

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