Bradford Lady Owls suffered through numerous cold streaks in a 46-27 loss to the Punxsutawney.
Leah Miller scored 14 points and Kylee Lingenfelter added 12 more to pace the Lady Chucks. Bri Wells score eight for the Lady Owls in the loss.
The first cold streak occurred early in the first quarter. After Hope Bridge connected on a field goal to put the Lady Chucks up 2-0 1:59 into the first quarter, Morgan Roggenbaum hit a three-point basket to put the Lady Owls up for the first and last time.
Punxsy scored three unanswered points until the 2:48 mark of the quarter when the Lady Owls scored their second field goal of the night to tie the game 5-5. Kylee Lingenfelter put Punxsy ahead 8-5 with a bomb beyond the arc for an 8-5 lead. The first quarter ended with the Lady Chucks leading 10-7.
“We had a lot of looks in the first quarter and if we could have hit a few shots we might have changed the momentum and maybe changed the way they played defense,” lamented Lady Owls Head Coach Bob Hannon.
Punxsy began the second quarter with a full court press that kept the Lady Owls off the board until 6:30 left in the half as bradford cut the lead to 13-9. The Lady Chucks scored two quick baskets to build their leads to 17-9. Bradford went on a cold streak failing to score in the last 3:37 to open a 25-15 lead at the half.
”We opened up the game by changing the defense to a press,” Lady Chucks Head Coach Mike Caldwell said. “It was good to see our guards play good ball defense tonight”.
Neither team could muster much of an offense in the third quarter with each missing open shots and good pressure defense causing turnovers with Punxsy outscoring Bradford 7-6 for a 32-21 lead after three quarters.
“Even though we played pretty much even ball in the third quarter, we dug ourselves a hole by not scoring some of the open looks we had in the third quarter” Hannon said.
Punxsy opened the fourth quarter with a five-point run before the Lady Owls could score their first point in the fourth quarter to put the Lady Chucks up 39-21. With the game getting out of hand, the Lady Owls had to foul to try and close the gap only to have Punxsy hit five of nine from the line to salt the game away.
“We shot well from the line down the stretch and had a chance to work on a few things tonight” Caldwell said. “We always expect a good game up here in Bradford and they generally have a good crowd which they did again tonight. It was good for us to switch up our defense tonight.”
As for the Lady Owls, Hannon felt the girls executed well offensively but, “we just didn’t shoot well tonight. They have those two big girls underneath (Miller and Lingenfelter) and they took advantage of their height to control the boards. We didn’t shoot well early who knows we make a few shots and the game might have changed our way. They are a well coached team and He (Caldwell) has them playing well.”
Bradford falls to 6-9 on the season and will travel to Keystone Monday night. Punxsy improves to 9-3 on the season.
PUNXSUTAWNEY (46)
Bridge 4-0-0-8, White 1-0-0-2, Lunger 2-1-3-5, Ferko 2-1-2-5, Leah Miller 4-5-7-13, Horner 0-1-3-1, Kylee Lingenfelter 4-1-3-12, Totals 17-11-18-46
BRADFORD (27)
Woodmansee 2-0-0-4, Roggenbaum 2-0-0-5, Hennigan 1-2-2-3, Wells 4-0-1-8, Moffett 1-3-4-5, Totals 11-4-7-27
By Quarters
Punxsutawney 10 15 7 14 — 46
Bradford 7 8 6 6 — 27
Three-Point FGS: Punsxy-Lingenfelter 1, Bradford-Roggenbaum 1
JV Score 30-16 Punxsutawney
Jolynne Weaver 6
