Lacie Kringe and Sophia Shults got the offense off to a fast start and the Hazleton Area defense limited Abington Heights to five baskets inside the arc Friday night while leading the hosts to a 43-31 victory in the Lady Cougar Tip-Off Tournament.
The two perennial contenders opened the season ranked among the top Big School girls teams in the Riverfront Sports Super Six Basketball Power Rankings of District 2 teams. Hazleton Area is fourth. Defending district Class 5A champion Abington Heights is fifth.
Nazareth Area rallied past Lake-Lehman, 36-31, earlier in the day to advance into Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. final against Hazleton Area.
Abington Heights and Lake-Lehman play in another game between ranked teams for third place at 6 p.m. Lake-Lehman, which dropped from Class 4A to 3A this season, is No. 2 among Small Schools.
Hazleton Area jumped on Abington Heights to take an 18-8 lead after one quarter.
Kringe, who had all nine of her points by halftime, had seven in the first quarter.
Shults added 6 of her team-high 12 points in the quarter.
Brianna Kennedy added 11 points for the Lady Cougars.
Hazleton Area built the lead to 27-14 at halftime and 37-20 after three quarters.
Alexis Reimold had six of her nine points in the third quarter.
Maggie Coleman hit five 3-pointers to lead Abington Heights with 17 points. She drained four in the second half and three in the fourth quarter.
The Lady Comets scored six of the first eight points in the fourth quarter to get within 39-26 with 4:24 left.
Madison Zalewski added nine points in the loss.
Nazareth Area 36, Lake-Lehman 31
Lake-Lehman shut out Nazareth Area in the first quarter.
After managing just one basket and five points in the first half, Nazareth got four 3-pointers from Addison Kea to tie the game after three quarters.
Samantha Baker went 3-for-4 from the line in the fourth quarter and finished with 12 points.
Lake-Lehman led 6-0 after one quarter and 10-5 at halftime.
Hailey Kline went 5-for-8 from the line in the second half and led the Lady Knights with 13 points.
