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Tyrone girls cruise to victory over Central

TYRONE – The Tyrone Area High School girls basketball team could not have been more dominant in Friday night’s win against the visiting Central Lady Dragons.

The Eagles rolled to a big 70-44 victory in Mountain League action at the Tyrone Area Middle School gymnasium.

“It was a nice win,” Tyrone coach Luke Rhoades said. “They always come here and play well.”

It was all Tyrone in the first quarter – it outscored the Scarlet Dragons, 19-6, in the frame. After Tyrone’s Nicole Gripp made her lone 3-pointer of the night with 3:50 remaining, Central answered with a Darby Boyles layup. But the Eagles closed the quarter with a 10-2 run, highlighted by a pair of treys by Alayna Hettinger, and the Eagles held a 13-point lead after one period.

Tyrone point guard Jordyn Swogger began the second half by banking in a trey from straight on, and after Brayley Lewis scored on a layup, Alex Brooks, who finished the game with 15 points, sank a trey.

Boyles then scored on a fastbreak layup to cut the Central deficit to 25-10, then Tyrone went on a 10-4 run for the remainder of the half. Hettinger scored four of her team’s 10 points on a pair of layups. This enabled the Eagles to go into the locker room with a 21-point advantage.

But just as it appeared that Tyrone might run away with it, the Lady Dragons decided to make a game of it. Central’s Mikaela McGraw began the third with a trey, and after that, Myers made a layup to make it a 35-19 game.

Brooks then drained a 3-pointer, and after a jumper from Laura Ritchey and a made layup by Lewis, Swogger made her second trey of the game to make it a 41-23 lead with a little less than four minutes left in the third. Hettinger’s jumper gave the Eagles a 48-28 lead, but the Scarlet Dragons scored the last four points and the Dragons’ deficit was at 16 with one period remaining.

The Eagles ended any chance of a Central comeback, scoring 18 of the game’s next 19 points. The Eagles got hot again after one quarter of cooling a bit from long distance. Hettinger and Morgan Taylor both made shots from 3-point range.

The Scarlet Dragons had fought so hard and had used so much energy to get themselves back into the ballgame, that they had little left in the fourth, and the Eagles outscored their foe by 10 in the fourth.

“We came out slow tonight and very flat,” second-year Central coach Shelley McCune said. “You can’t do that against a team like Tyrone.”

CENTRAL (44): Boyles 7 0-0 14, Myers 2 0-0 4, McGraw 1 5-6 8, Ritchey 1 2-2 4, Lewis 3 3-10 10, McKnight 2 0-0 4. Totals 16 10-18 44.

TYRONE (70): Reese 0 0-0 0, Hammond 0 0-0 0, Kemp 0 0-0 0, Raftery 0 0-0 0, Taylor 3 0-0 7, Swogger 3 0-2 8, Gripp 8 1-2 18, Sprankle 0 0-0 0, Christine 1 0-0 2, Gill 0 0-0 0, Hawes 1 0-0 2, Brooks 6 1-2 15, Hettinger 7 0-0 18. Totals 29 2-6 70.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Central6 8 18 12 – 44

Tyrone19 16 13 22 – 70

3-point field goals: Central 2 (Lewis, McGraw). Tyrone 10 (Taylor, Swogger 2, Gippp, Brooks 2, Hettinger 4).

Records: Central (7-10); Tyrone (13-5).

JV: Central won 37-27. High scorers-Lewis, C, 24; Christine, T, 12.

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