Lady Pirates eliminate rival in playoff opener
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By Nate Ritchey
nritchey@altoonamirror.com
WILLIAMSBURG -- Williamsburg seemed to be in a hurry to put Juniata Valley away from the outset.
The two teams met twice during the regular season with the Lady Blue Pirates winning by 29 and 37 points.
The Lady Green Hornets had other ideas as they hung around into the early part of the second half.
By then, the Blue Pirates had enough and delivered a full-court press that wreaked havoc and turned a close contest into an eventual 63-32 victory on Monday night in quarterfinal action of the District 6 Class 1A playoffs.
"I think we wanted to come out and prove that we could put the ball in the basket. We were just trying a little bit too hard to do that right away," Williamsburg coach Amy Hileman said. "We talked to them at halftime about executing the offense, and that's what we did. We also started to pick them up full court."
Leading by nine (25-16) at the half, Williamsburg and JV traded baskets to start the third as Anna Taylor, who had 12 points on the night, knocked down a 3-pointer just 18 seconds in before Laney Prough, who pulled down a team-high nine rebounds, converted a putback for the Pirates.
Maddie Hopsicker, who tied Taylor for team-high scoring honors and ripped down 10 boards, made a driving layup to cut it to six (27-21) before Prough delivered again.
Juniata Valley's Amelia Russell came through with her only field goal of the night as the junior hit a trey to get her team within five at 29-24 nearly three minutes into the second half.
That's as close as the Lady Blue Pirates allowed them to get as the third seed reeled off a 19-2 run, including 11 unanswered, to blow wide open the game.
Williamsburg's Ayla Hileman, who fronted all scorers with 25 points, including five from behind the arc, connected on two free throws to get things going with 4:54 showing on the clock.
The Lady Pirates switched to a press and LeeAnna Royer had a field day as the super quick sophomore came up with five steals and two deflections that led to steals during the spurt.
"When we picked them up full court, that's always a change of pace in our favor," Coach Hileman said. "We actually wanted to do that earlier, and I'm not quite sure why we didn't."
Royer also converted three of her steals into points as she scored eight of her 12 points in the final four minutes of the third.
Hileman registered five more points while freshman Vada Gorsuch, who recorded 15 points and eight rebounds, had four points in the game-changing span.
When the buzzer sounded ending the third, Williamsburg held a 48-26 edge.
"We generally handle their press well, but we got on a run where we made a bad pass here and there, and that just kind of dampened our momentum," Juniata Valley coach Liz Radabaugh said. "We tried to fight back from that."
The Blue Pirates kept things rolling into the fourth as a 13-5 burst capped off by a 3-pointer from Ayla Hileman made the score 61-31 and kicked the mercy-rule running clock into effect at the 4:15 mark.
Williamsburg moved to 23-2 and will travel to Bald Eagle Area at 6 p.m. on Saturday to face second-seeded St. Joseph's Academy in the semifinals.
"We got to say farewell to the seniors who played their final game on our floor here,'' Coach Hileman said. "We're looking forward to the next game."
Williamsburg outscored Juniata Valley 38-16 in the second half while forcing 12 turnovers and only turning it over four times itself.
The loss ended Juniata Valley's season at 9-14, but Radabaugh, in just her first year, is excited about things to come.
"We are excited for what 2024-25 is going to bring for us. We have a great core group coming back," Radabaugh said. "Maddie and Izzy (Anderson) will be missed a lot. ... But we're really looking forward to the group we have coming back and the eighth graders that will be coming up next year."
At the outset, Williamsburg appeared like it was on the verge of turning the third meeting between the two schools into another rout by jumping out to a 9-0 lead a little over three minutes in.
A timeout by Radabaugh helped calm her team down as they immediately responded with a Taylor 3-pointer and jumper from Hopsicker to make the score 9-5.
"We just reassured them that they were in this game," Radabaugh said. "That they have the ability to hang with them (Williamsburg). We just reviewed what our initial game plan was, got that back to the front of their minds and let them go play."
Williamsburg extended the advantage to 17-9 after the opening stanza but then, despite JV getting within six (17-11) on a Taylor driving layup, went up by double digits only minutes later.
Anastasia Ranalli made a bucket at 2:57 of the second quarter to give the Lady Pirates a 23-11 lead before Taylor and Gorsuch traded baskets to keep the WHS margin at 12.
Hopsicker knocked down a triple to cut the deficit to single digits at 25-16 heading to the locker room.
JUNIATA VALLEY (32): Sunderland 0 0-0 0, Hopsicker 5 0-0 12, Russell 1 1-2 4, Taylor 4 2-2 12, Watson 2 0-0 4, Foster 0 0-0 0, Harman 0 0-0 0, Anderson 0 0-0 0. Totals: 12 3-4 32.
WILLIAMSBURG (63): Hileman 9 2-2 25, R. Prough 0 0-0 0, Royer 6 0-0 12, Gorsuch 6 3-4 15, L. Prough 3 3-4 9, Ranalli 1 0-0 2, G. Colbert 0 0-0 0, Carper 0 0-0 0, Frye 0 0-0 0, A. Colbert 0 0-0 0, Alexander 0 0-0 0. Totals: 25 8-10 63.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Juniata Valley 9 7 10 6 -- 32
Williamsburg 17 8 23 15 -- 63
3-point field goals: Juniata Valley 5 (Hopsicker 2, Taylor 2, Russell); Williamsburg 5 (Hileman 5).
Records: Juniata Valley (9-14); Williamsburg (23-2).