BGHT: Tri-Valley Overcomes Foul Trouble

TV OVERCOMES FOUL TROUBLE IN 2 GAMES

For the first time this season the Tri-Valley Lady Bears experienced foul trouble in two consecutive games but held on to easily defeat S. S. Seward and then had to come from behind to edge Tuxedo.

Last Wednesday night the Bears won 61-38 over S.S. Seward at Florida but Friday night they had to dig in to edge Tuxedo 44-41.

Three Tri-Valley starters, Sabrina Smith, Katlynn Greffrath and Caroline Martin accumulated three fouls each during the course of the Seward game but timely baskets by several bench players put the game on ice for the Bears.

Tri-Valley Coach Jason Closs expressed concern about the fouls, saying "I though we played well....we had foul trouble throughout the game but we had some girls in that first half that picked us up."

Aggressive play by Greffrath and Martin resulted in each obtaining their second foul in the second quarter of play and with these two starters sitting on the bench the closest S.S. Seward came was at 3:11 of the second quarter when they pushed the score to 22-15.

Coming off the bench and contributing five important points in that quarter was Junior Danielle Shafarsky with a three-pointer and two additional points to help the Bears increase their half-time lead to 34-15.

Tri-Valley outscored S.S. Seward 22-10 in the first quarter, 12-5 in the second quarter, each team scored 11 points in the third quarter and Tri-Valley added 16 to Seward's 12 in the final eight minutes of play.

S. S. Seward committed 21 turnovers to Tri-Valley's 19.

In commenting on his team's loss Seward Coach Joseph DiMattina said, "Tri-Valley is very quick, very tough, they take it very well to the basket and they out hustle you."

DiMattina added, "we were able at one point to cut their lead down to seven but they have a lot of girls who come in and play well and maybe next time we have to try and match their intensity."

When asked about their leading scorer, Emi Knecht, Coach DiMattina pointed out "she is only a ninth grader and my squad is a very young team with an eighth grader and several sophomores and this is one of these games where a more experienced team took it to you."

Knecht led S.S. Seward with 16 points. With this game the team record went to 7-3 and and 1-2 in OCIAA league play.

Greffrath led all scorers with 20 points, Martin 12, Smith 10 and Shafarsky 8.

With this win Tri-Valley upped its record to 10-0 and 2-0 in league play.

Friday nights game turned into what many call a "barn burner" in the small Tuxedo court equipped with what ballplayers call "tight rims".

Tuxedo threw a tight harassing defense against Tri-Valley and their smaller sized court definitely helped in containing the Bears run and gun offense.

Foul trouble again reared its ugly head as Tri-Valley's Smith and Greffrath fouled out late in the fourth quarter with the Bears trailing by three points.

Before fouling out Smith made a big steal and several clutch free throws by Martin in the final minute were the deciding factor in the Bears posting an 11-0 record and 3-0 in OCIAA league play.

Tuxedo's successful attempt to closely guard Tri-Valley's Greffrath paid off for most of the game but the high scoring point guard was able to record 14 points before leaving in the fourth quarter.

Tri-Valley took a 11-7 first quarter lead but fell behind 20-17 at half time. A big third quarter saw the Bears outscore Tuxedo 17-9 for a 34-29 lead.

Fourth quarter play saw Tuxedo continue their tough defense while on offense drawing 11 foul shots and making 6 of their 12 scores from the foul line. Tri-Valley scored 10 in the final eight minutes of play with Martin adding a field goal and key foul shots for a game total of 10 points.

Smith scored 8 and Sara Dertinger 6 for Tri-Valley

Tri-Valley committed 27 turnovers to Tuxedo's 25.

A much relieved Bears coach Jason Closs commented, "Tuxedo played very well, they played physical, stayed back in their zone which we knew they would and took advantage of the small court."

"We did not shoot very well and made some errors that we need to correct and should not be doing at this point but we survived and I told the girls in the locker room that in good years you wins these and in bad years you lose," Closs said.

He added, "a couple of calls could have gone the other way but I was proud we had two girls out at the end and we finished with two substitutes on the floor and it wasn't an easy finish."

He had high praise for "Caroline Martin who stepped up at the end, Colleen Jones hit a real nice runner deep into the game and Sabrina Smith hit two or three key shots when we needed her to and she has done that for us all year."

Tuxedo Coach Powers was not available for comment.

Tri-Valley's Danielle Shafarsky (10) drives to the hoop guarded by S.S. Seward's Emi Knecht (10) in the Bears 61-38 win last Wednesday at Florida.