For at least a half on Tuesday night, it looked as if the Bradford and DuBois girls basketball teams would have another fight to the finish similar to their game a couple of weeks ago.
In that game, Bradford defeated DuBois 42-37 in overtime to snap a five-game losing streak.
But after a back-and-forth first half that saw the Lady Owls up by one, DuBois ran away over the final 16 minutes to beat Bradford 44-34 in a District 9 League game.
Leading 19-18 coming out of the halftime break, Bradford (6-12, 1-5) was outscored 16-2 to start the third quarter and found itself down 34-25 heading into fourth.
“Didn’t take care of the ball,” Bradford coach Bob Hannon. “We always stress to them that the first three minutes of the second half are critical.”
Unofficially, the Owls committed seven turnovers in the third quarter that led to plenty of easy transition points for DuBois (10-9, 2-5).
Chelsea DeSalve led the Lady Beavers in the second half with nine points, including an impressive 8-for-10 from the free-throw line. For the game, DuBois made 18 trips to the charity stripe, while Bradford shot just 4-of-6.
“No excuses, they play hard and they have a good team,” Hannon said. “With DeSalve, weheld her in check (at DuBois earlier in the year) and that was one of the keys to us winning down there. She did a pretty good job today.”
She finished with 14 points to lead the Lady Beavers.
Bradford jumped out to a 9-2 lead to start the game, and shot well from the field in the first half. Hannah Lary had eight points after 16 minutes, and Erica Marshall seven, but they both struggled in the second half.
“We had some good looks at the basket,” Hannon said. “We had a couple of opportunities that we squandered by just giving the ball to the other team.”
“I’m not saying they didn’t play good defense, but they weren’t forced errors. We just kind of threw the ball away and in a close game you can’t get away with that kind of stuff.”
After a four-game win streak, the Owls have now lost back-to-back games in which they held the lead. On Monday night, Bradford fell to Elk County Catholic by two points after building a sizable advantage in the first half.
And while Hannon didn’t want to make excuses for his team’s poor start to the second half Tuesday, he could tell his girls were still feeling the effects from a hard-fought loss the night before.
“I could see that we were winded out there,” he said. “I mean a 30-second timeout doesn’t get your wind back. Our girls played hard, it wasn’t a matter of a lack of any effort, I just think we were tired. We were a little beat up from last night, Erica had a bad hand and that didn’t help any.”
Lary had a game-high 15 points to lead Bradford, while Marshall was also in double-figures with 11.
With any shot at the postseason ended by the consecutive losses, Hannon is still confident that he will continue to see effort and pride from his girls as they play out the last four games of the season
“I never question their effort,” he said. “We had a couple of periods where we haven’t played extremely well but I don’t think that’s because we aren’t trying.
“It’s a great group of kids and they give you maximum effort of what they can give you out there. I’m not concerned about that at all; I think they will continue to play hard and will have to treat this as a learning experience.”
The Lady Owls travel to Brookville on Friday.
AT BRADFORD
DuBois (44)
Chelsea Desalve 3 8-10 14, Johnson 4 0-3 8, Weible 3 0-1 6, M. Smith 1 1-2 3, T. Smith 1 0-0 2, Guitter 4 1-2 11. Totals: 16 10-18 44
Bradford (34)
Hannah Lary 6 2-2 15, Erica Marshall 5 0-2 11, Maley 2 0-0 4, Tyger 1 0-0 2, Warner 0 2-2 2.Totals: 14 4-6 34
DuBois 5 18 34 44
Bradford 9 19 25 34
Three-point goals: DuBois 2 (Guitter), Bradford 2 (Marshall, Lary); total fouls: DuBois 12, Bradford 14; fouled out: none
JV: DuBois won 54-27
