Gerwert

BELLWOOD — Bellwood-Antis girls basketball senior Lilly Gerwert has been dealing with an illness recently as the regular season winds down and the District 6 playoff picture comes into focus.

“I still don’t feel good,” Gerwert said. “The first half was a little iffy. We were in the locker room and (B-A coach Jim Swaney) had his motivational speech like he always does, and he got me.

“I was like ‘I’m just going to let it all out for my team and play as hard as I can for my team’ It was really more for my team. Now I can be sick later.”

Monday night, Gerwert fought through it to help set up a spark for the Lady Blue Devils’ offense in the third before taking over in the fourth, scoring 12 of her game-high 21 points as they held on for a 49-46 win over the Lady Eagles at a raucous Bellwood-Antis gym. The win secures a season series sweep for Bellwood.

“She’s tough as nails, and she was sick as a dog,” Bellwood-Antis coach Jim Swaney said. “To do what she did tonight feeling the way that she did, she’s a leader, she’s our leader. She’s our best player, and we’re going to go as she goes. Tonight, she led us to a win.”

Tyrone coach Mike Whitling echoed Swaney’s statements as Bellwood overcame a 24-14 Tyrone advantage at the half.

“Lilly’s the difference maker in this one,” he said. “She just stood in the middle of the paint and dared us to shoot over her. She did a great job going straight up, blocking our shots, and that really frustrated us.”

Gerwert’s impact started being felt early in the second half as she drained a putback. Later in the third quarter, she came up with a block which set up Karlie Sweigert for a layup.

Sweigert struck again later in the third for a 3-pointer before Gerwert added a jumper off an in-bounds play to help cut the deficit to four after three quarters at 34-30.

“We talked a lot at halftime about playing without nerves (at the half),” Swaney said. “I thought we were a bundle of nerves in the first half. We were afraid to shoot, we were afraid to put the ball on the floor sometimes. We came out in the second half and played incredible and I couldn’t be more proud of their effort.”

Both sides traded buckets during the fourth. Raylee Woodring drained a 3 — as she scored a team-high 18 points — with under two-minutes to play.

Gerwert, though, proved to be too much as adding a layup and three critical free-throws put the Lady Blue Devils up three before a last-second heave came up short for Tyrone.

“You’ve got to make them pay when they play defense like that and we did not,” Whitling said. “We did the things we wanted to do (in the second half). It just comes down to hitting open shots and we had wide open looks.”

Swaney appreciated the push his team got from the Lady Eagles.

“Credit Tyrone, they’re very good,” he said. “They have such tough matchups with (Lola) Woomer, and (Claire) Lehman and (Woodring). They’re going to be a tough out in (Class) 4A. When you lose a kid like (Alayna Woomer), it’s going to take you some time for you to find another identity.

“Give their kids credit. They rallied around that and they are very well coached, and they just give you a battle.”

B-A (12-8) has no time to rest. It plays three games in three days to end the regular season as it hosts Johnstown tonight. Tyrone (15-6) will wrap up the regular season Wednesday at home with Somerset.

TYRONE (46): Crowell 3 2-2 8, Lehman 2 3-4 9, Parker 1 0-0 2, Volders 0 1-2 1, Woomer 3 2-2 8, Woodring 4 7-8 18, Davis 0 0-0 0. Totals: 13 15-18 46.

BELLWOOD-ANTIS (49): L. Gerwert 7 6-10 21, Cacciotti 1 0-0 2, Sweigert 6 2-4 16, Sloey 1 5-6 8, Plummer 0 2-2 2, Hammond 0 0-0 0. Totals: 15 15-22 49.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Tyrone 17 7 10 12 – 46

Bellwood-Antis 7 7 16 19 – 49

3-point field goals: Tyrone 5 (Lehman 2, Woodring 3), Bellwood-Antis 4 (L. Gerwert, Sweigert 2, Sloey)

Records: Tyrone (15-6), Bellwood-Antis (12-8).

JV: No game.