Lady Bucks inspiring season ends in D4 playoffs at Millville, 57-29

By Bees O’Brien

Millville- The Bucktail Lady Bucks basketball season came to an end Wednesday night in their PIAA District IV 1A quarterfinal contest at Millville. In a season that nearly never came to be, the seventh seeded Lady Bucks put their hearts into one last effort against the second seeded Lady Quakers.

Millville’s high scoring guard Larissa Evans would scorch the nets for 21 points and teammate Julia Hippenstiel dropped in 16 points to help Millville (14-8) lock up a semifinal meeting with MPC East rivals Benton (13-10) for a spot in the District title game. The Lady Tigers eliminated NP-Liberty in their quarterfinal game by a 56-29 score.

Bucktail started off slow by being outscored 14-5 in the first quarter. Millville’s halftime lead grew to 30-11 following a huge 15-6 second quarter.

Despite 8 second half points from departing senior Matti Mason, the Lady Bucks couldn’t find an answer to stopping Evan, Hippenstiel and the rest of the Lady Quakers.

A 17-7 third quarter sealed the game up for Millville. Bucktail did manage to outscore Millville 11-10 the fourth quarter to set the 57-29 final.

Mason finished her career at Bucktail on a high note by scoring a team-high 14 points, collecting 6 rebounds, collecting 4 steals and dished out a pair of assists. Kendall Wagner finished off a season that seen her joining the 500 rebound club by scoring 10 points and grabbing 10 more rebounds. Eva Sockman, who also reached 500 rebounds this season rounded out the Bucktail scoring with 5 points and 12 rebounds.

Bucktail, which began the season with Mason, Kendall Wagner and Eva Sockman posting a video on social media in hopes of garnering enough interest among the student body to have enough participants to field a team, overachieved many expectations and finished 8-14 on the season.