Detterline

LOYSBURG — Northern Bedford coach Jon Ewart stresses to his team the importance of starting the game and the second half well.

Neither of those stretches did anything to help the Lady Panthers against third-seeded Forbes Road.

On the flip side, those timeframes didn’t necessarily hurt them either.

During Thursday’s battle, NBC used the minutes following the first few of each half to make runs, create separation and ultimately pull away from the Lady Cardinals in a 63-45 victory in District 5 Class 1A semifinal action.

“I always tell the girls that the most important minutes are the first two minutes of the game and the first two minutes of the second half,” Ewart said. “We didn’t play overly well coming out of halftime as we just kind of felt a little bit comfortable.”

With the win, second-seeded NBC moves into a championship matchup with top seed Southern Fulton, a 55-43 winner over Rockwood, next Thursday, Feb. 26 at UPJ’s Sports Center at a time to be determined.

The Panthers’ Alyssa Yeatts grabbed the opening tip and dribbled straight to the hoop for a layup just seconds into the game.

The bucket gave NBC a lead it didn’t relinquish, but it also was the only points scored until Ava Verbit came off the bench to knock down the first of her three 3-pointers.

“I’ll be honest, I was a little bit nervous not playing for nine days and seeing if we had a little bit of rust to us,” Ewart said. “We kind of felt like we did a couple of minutes in as it was only 2-0 for three or four minutes.”

Forbes got within 7-6 on a Kinsley Small trey before Northern went on a 17-1 run to take a 24-7 edge, following a Yeatts triple around the three minute mark of the second stanza.

“We got into a little bit of a slump offensively and couldn’t finish things,” Forbes Road coach Ramonda Zinobile said. “We were getting shots and getting opportunities, we just couldn’t finish.”

A 6-5 scoring edge by the Cardinals gave NBC a 16-point advantage at 29-13 going into the half.

“Defensively, we were playing extremely well in the first half,” Ewart said. “So, that’s what really helped us to be able to build a little bit of momentum and then build some offense coming along with that too.”

The two teams began the third by trading baskets two times before Small drilled another 3-pointer to pull Forbes as close as it would get at 13 points (33-20) the rest of the way.

Amberly Detterline, who had already scored inside twice to start the frame, kickstarted a 22-9 burst by the Lady Panthers with a pair of free throws.

NBC made a concerted effort to get the ball into Detterline, who pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds, in the third and the junior delivered nine of her 14 points in the frame.

By the time the Northern Bedford run ended, it was into the fourth quarter and Alyssa Yeatts, who had 11 points, made another shot from deep to give her team a 55-29 lead.

The Panthers were able to get scoring from all over in the two major runs. Verbit led all scorers with a game-high 15 points; Halle Baker, who did a good job defensively holding FR’s leading scorer Sydney Gelvin to nine points, recorded nine points of her own, while Hannah Yeatts ended with six and Blaire Gable went 5-of-6 from the line to account for her points.

A pair of Alyssa Yeatts free throws had the difference at 26 points (57-31) again before the Lady Cardinals concluded the contest with 14 of the final 20 points on the evening to set the final margin.

FORBES ROAD (45): Small 2 1-2 7, Revercomb 5 2-5 12, Fix 4 3-5 11, Gelvin 3 2-2 9, Ramsey 1 0-2 3, Barnett 0 1-4 1, Kuhn 1 0-0 2. Totals: 16 9-20 45.

NORTHERN BEDFORD (63): Baker 4 0-1 9, A. Yeatts 3 3-4 11, H. Yeatts 1 4-4 6, Gable 0 5-6 5, Detterline 5 4-4 14, Verbit 5 2-2 15, Smith 1 0-0 2, L. Barton 0 0-0 0, Reasy 0 0-0 0, Troy 0 0-0 0, B. Barton 0 1-2 1, Bollman 0 0-0 0. Totals: 19 20-23 63.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Forbes Road 7 6 13 19 — 45

Northern Bedford 12 17 15 19 — 63

3-point field goals: Forbes Road 4 (Small 2, Gelvin, Ramsey); Northern Bedford 6 (Verbit 3, A. Yeatts 2, Baker).

Records: Forbes Road (11-13); Northern Bedford (14-9).