Staying Alive: Strong inside play keeps Lady Bucks in playoff hunt with big road win
By Bees O’Brien
MONTGOMERY, PA- Bucktail’s girls basketball team found themselves with their back against the wall Saturday afternoon at Montgomery. The Lady Bucks needed to find a way to come out of their meeting with the Lady Raiders on top to keep their hopes at a postseason alive.
They found their way and it was the strongest way. A complete team effort and a dominating opening quarter would complete the sweep of Montgomery, as Bucktail would steamroll back to Clinton County with the 40-26 victory.
7 points from Lily Francis helped spark the Lady Bucks offense in the first quarter and their defense was dynamite as Bucktail held Montgomery scoreless with an 18-0 lead after one quarter.
The Lady Raiders would rally in the second quarter and hold an 8-7 advantage in the frame, but still trailed 25-8.
Just like their previous December meeting in Farwell, Montgomery came out rejuvenated in the third quarter. The Lady Raiders took advantage of a sluggish Bucktail squad and outscored them 13-3 in the third quarter to shrink the Lady Bucks lead to 28-21.
Francis would rally her troops in the fourth. She would score 6 of her game high 15 points in the final quarter to go along with her 11 rebounds for the game. This would give the Bucktail senior her second straight double-double as her team fended off Montgomery and held them to just 5 points in the final eight minutes of play to set the final.
Francis wasn’t the only Lady Buck to hit the boards hard. Kendall Wagner grabbed 13 rebounds to go along with her 4 points. Freshman Eva Sockman continued to give Bucktail some quality minutes. Sockman netted 8 points and grabbed 6 rebounds, while swiping away 5 steals. Kayla Probert would score 7 points, Matti Mason added 3, Dezlyn Halpate scored 2 points and Lola English scored 1 point to round out the Lady Bucks scoring.
Kaylana Walters led Montgomery with 9 points.
Bucktail upped their record to 8-10, while Montgomery fell to 2-15 on the season.
The victory eased some pressure off head coach Carl Gentzyel’s Lady Bucks. A loss would have meant that Bucktail would have had to find a way to pull off major upsets over South Williamsport (13-5) or Muncy (12-6).
Bucktail is still two wins away from reaching the 10-win mark and will still need to beat Galeton (0-18) during Thursday’s “Pink Out” contest in Farwell and defeat Austin (6-10) at home on Feb. 16. The Lady Bucks already own a tight 36-27 victory over the Lady Panthers clear back on December 2 in both teams’ season opener.
