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By Nate Ritchey
nritchey@altoonamirror.com
SIDMAN -- All game long, Central Cambria battled, scrapped, traded baskets and did whatever it needed to do to not allow Forest Hills to separate itself.
Then, with the most unfortunate of timing, the Lady Red Devils simply could not put the ball in the basket.
It wasn't that CC was turning the ball over and not even giving itself a chance -- the ball did not go through the hoop.
That allowed the Lady Rangers the chance to pull away, and FH took full advantage by scoring 12 unanswered points in the fourth to hand Central Cambria a 60-47 defeat on Monday night in District 6 Class 3A semifinal action.
"Definitely, something happened in the fourth quarter where we stopped scoring," Central Cambria coach Brittany Bracken said. "... It just felt like we missed a couple of looks that we should have made, missed a couple of free throws. Then they (Forest Hills) hit a couple. ... Then, I felt like our offense was a little too rushed -- I don't know if we panicked a little bit."
The loss dropped the Lady Devils to 13-11 and set up a matchup at River Valley on Friday at 7 p.m. in the consolation game with the winner advancing to the state playoffs and the loser seeing its season come to an end.
After a third quarter that had two ties and three changes, Central Cambria's Ava Barra knocked down her only field goal of the night -- a 3-pointer -- off an inbounds pass. With 1:23 left in the third, CC was only down two at 40-38.
"I knew that they (Central Cambria) were never going to quit -- there battle was in them," Forest Hills coach Carol Cecere said. "They are battle-tested as I thought they had a tough schedule when you look at it from top to bottom. Their losses were not big losses."
Unfortunately, that's where the lid seemed to close for the Lady Red Devils as they did not make another shot from the field until Alaina Long hit a floater with 1:03 left in the game.
Forest Hills held to a 40-38 edge heading into the fourth when Anna Burkey opened the scoring up with a trey in the left corner to put her team up five.
CC's Abigail Sheehan made the first of two foul shots before Aubrey Ruddek hit a pair less than a minute later to close the gap to two.
Those free throws, which made the score 43-41, came with 6:17 showing on the clock, and they were the last points the Lady Devils scored until Abigail Sheehan made two from the foul line with 1:21 remaining.
Those shots pulled CC to within 55-43.
"We just needed a couple more of those baskets to fall in the fourth early on, and I think it would have been a different game," Bracken said. "We did not want to be down around the four-minute mark because I knew they (Forest Hills) would hold the ball. Then we would have to foul, and that wasn't a position we wanted to be in at the end."
In the nearly five-minute scoreless span Central Cambria endured, Forest Hills was able to reel off 12 straight points keyed by six from Arissa Britt.
Following the Abigail Sheehan free throws, Long, who finished with a team-high 15 points, hit the floater to pull CC within 10, but the Devils got no closer as Forest Hills ended with a 5-2 run to claim victory.
Forest Hills, now 23-3, will meet Westmont Hilltop, a 65-52 winner over River Valley, on Friday at Mount Aloysius College for the championship starting at 6 p.m.
Forest Hills leading scorer Alexis Henderson had 26 points in the only regular-season meeting with Central Cambria -- a 60-50 Ranger win. However, a box-and-1 limited the senior to just seven points, all in the first quarter. But it was the rest of the Lady Rangers who answered the call.
Britt tallied 15 points, while Schirato added 12 points and a game-high nine boards.
Forest Hills led for most of the first half as Central Cambria led early at 4-2 on a layup by Keira Link nearly two minutes into the game.
The Lady Rangers seized control on a 3-pointer by Henderson.
Forest Hills grabbed two separate leads of seven (16-9 and 19-12) with the second coming on an Olivia McLeary putback at 5:08 of the second stanza.
"Central Cambria knew that we know that they have shooters -- and they are a wide variety of shooters," Cecere said. "You cannot pinpoint one or two girls because every girl comes out to take shots. They like to shoot deep; they like to shoot off jump shots. We were just trying to make them uncomfortable. In the first half, there were waves of uncomfortableness."
The Lady Red Devils immediately responded with a 6-0 run on back-to-back shots by Long and a layup from Alaina Sheehan that made the score 19-18.
Britt drilled a trey to stop the run for the Rangers.
An Alaina Sheehan trifecta and Katie George pull-up off an inbounds pass gave CC its first lead since the early going at 23-22.
The two teams traded baskets before FH got the final four points on two free throws by Schirato and a layup from Burkey with 3.5 ticks to go to take a 28-25 lead into the half.
"I'm so proud of my team. We have struggled the last couple of seasons as a young team last season and a young team the season before that," Bracken said. "We're getting older now and gaining some experience, but we have made it our goal that we want to get Central Cambria back on the map. We want to get back to the (state) playoffs and get in the swing of things as a team that is talked about. We want to be where Forest Hills is."
CENTRAL CAMBRIA (47): Al. Sheehan 2 0-2 5, Ab. Sheehan 1 6-8 8, Link 2 1-3 5, Barra 1 2-2 5, Ruddek 2 3-6 7, Long 5 4-4 15, George 1 0-0 2, Kudlawiec 0 0-0 0. Totals ‚ 14 16-25 47.
FOREST HILLS (60): Britt 6 2-4 15, McLeary 3 2-3 8, Henderson 3 0-0 7, Burkey 3 1-2 8, Schirato 3 6-10 12, Spangler 0 0-0 0, Maul 3 0-0 6, Gdula 1 2-2 4. Totals -- 22 13-21 60.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Central Cambria 9 16 13 9 -- 47
Forest Hills 12 16 12 20 -- 60
3-point field goals: Central Cambria 3 (Al. Sheehan, Barra, Long); Forest Hills 3 (Britt, Henderson, Burkey).
Records: Central Cambria (13-11); Forest Hills (23-3).