By Tom Robinson, NEPASportsNation.com
SCRANTON – As the schedule turned tougher and the tasks became more demanding, the Wallenpaupack Lady Buckhorns got stronger.
With Ella Smith continuing her scoring surge, Grace Steffen establishing early control of the boards and Aviona Rosenthal hurting North Pocono with early 3-pointers, Wallenpaupack captured the Lackawanna League Division 2 girls basketball title with a 52-41 victory Friday night in a playoff game at Scranton High School.
The Lady Buckhorns headed into the final days of January 1½ games behind North Pocono in the division standings.
With the Lackawanna League season down to its final week, the only way Wallenpaupack could win the title was by:
- Going to Abington Heights and winning on the road against the Division 1 second-place team that had already handled the Division 2-leading Lady Trojans at North Pocono.
- Hitting the road again and avenging a home-court loss with a head-to-head win over the Lady Trojans.
- Taking the playoff game to win the season series with North Pocono.
Wallenpaupack not only won all three, but did so decisively – winning all three games by double-figures margins to extend its winning streak to six and improve to 17-6 overall.
“Right from the beginning we knew we had a good chance,” Steffen said. “We put in a lot of hard work in the offseason.
“But our turning point was definitely our Abington game, which wasn’t that long ago. We played one of our best games. We knew that they’re a fantastic team, but we came out and showed that we were just as good, maybe even better.”
Smith led the way again Friday, scoring 19 points and grabbing 7 rebounds. She put up 66 points in the three high-profile wins to complete the championship run.
“We knew we had to come out strong,” Smith said. “This was a very important game for us. We knew North Pocono was going to want revenge, but so did we because it was 1-1 and we wanted to show that we were just as good as them.”
Actually, the Lady Buckhorns made a clear case for being even better.
Steffen led a 40-28 advantage on the boards by finishing with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.
North Pocono led twice early before Wallenpaupack scored 10 straight points, 6 by Steffen, for a 13-4 lead.
Steffen and Paulina Schmidt had five rebounds each while the Lady Buckhorns were grabbing 13 of the game’s first 15.
“I knew that we had to all work together on the team,” Steffen said. “I knew that I had a job. I had to get the ball off the boards and get it out to our shooters.
“I think we did that today.”
Autumn Koch, who came off the bench to go 7-for-12 and score a team-high 17 points, did her best to keep North Pocono in the game.
Koch scored the last four points of the first quarter and her team’s first points of the second on a 3-pointer.
Following that 3-pointer, Wallenpaupack put together a 9-1 run with points from four different players, capped by Rosenthal’s 3-pointer for a 24-12 lead with 3:35 left in the half.
North Pocono’s Samantha Polishan stopped the run, but Rosenthal came right back with her third 3-pointer, making it 27-14 with 2:58 remaining.
The closest North Pocono got the rest of the way was 32-23 with the first five points of the second half on three more points by Koch and a fastbreak basket by Kylie Mastillo.
“We always try to play with confidence,” Smith said. “There was that one point at the beginning of the second half where they started to close the lead, but we kept working and we got it done.”
Rosenthal finished 3-for-7 on 3-pointers for nine points for the Lady Buckhorns. Schmidt grabbed nine rebounds.
Mastillo had 10 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots for North Pocono (12-11). Abby Lenchitsky added six points, eight rebounds and three assists.
