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By Scott Franco
sfranco@altoonamirror.com
MARTINSBURG -- Hard to imagine that a team could hit just one basket from the field in a quarter of play and still win a high school basketball playoff game. However, when you play defense like the Central girls team does, sometimes you can.
"We saw enough of them on film, and I told our girls that they were going to play man defense and they were going to play good man defense," said Westmont Hilltop coach Ron Flick, who watched Central beat his Lady Hilltoppers, 40-30, in a District 6 3A quarterfinal game Friday night.
Westmont (14-9) did not score more than nine points in any quarter, sometimes going more than two minutes without a field goal on the night.
"We saw them play the other night against a zone, and you ask yourself if you should switch it up, but tonight our (man) defense was our bread-and-butter," said Central coach Rob Mock, whose club will play Everett in the semifinals Tuesday night at a neutral site. "Our girls … they play hard on defense."
Central (20-3), which never trailed in the game, jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the first quarter, but did not get that lead until the 2:31 mark, courtesy of a jumper in the paint by sophomore Kylie Metzger. She scored eight of her 10 points in the first half.
"That was our plan in the first half. We wanted to get the ball inside to her and maybe get some of their big people in foul trouble," said Mock, whose club led 12-7 after one.
Westmont opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer at the 6:10 mark from Molly Callihan. That made it 12-10. However, Westmont did not score again until the 2:13 mark of the quarter on a bucket from Hannah Davis. By that point, Central had gone up 22-12, thanks to five points from Cassie Mock in the frame.
"We had some opportunities where we ran our sets and we got some shots that we wanted, but they weren't falling," Flick said. "Give our girls credit for battling hard but credit Central, too, because they play good defense."
The third quarter started with Central up, 25-14, and no basket was made until the 4:27 mark of the frame when Riley Shriver hit a 3-pointer from the corner. Central scored just five points in the quarter, two foul shots by Metzger and a near-corner 3-pointer from Erin Brumbaugh with five seconds left that put the Lady Dragons up, 30-21, going into the fourth quarter.
"We have to put four quarters of offensive basketball together," Mock said. "Something happens to us when we get a lead, it gets in our heads and things happen."
Central extended its lead to 13 pints at the 4:34 mark of the fourth on a Cassie Mock 3-pointer at 37-24. Callihan followed with a trey of her own at the 2:13 mark to make it 37-27, and foul shots from Callihan actually cut it to 37-30 with 1:02 to go in the game.
"I knew we would have to be sharp in our half-court sets, and we needed to get probably 15 points from a couple of people for this to be competitive," Flick said.
Maddi Metzler and Cassie Mock each hit a foul shot in the final 48 seconds to set the final at 40-30, but Central was just 3-of-8 from the stripe in the fourth, which included missing the front end of two one-and-ones.
"If you told me we would shoot that poorly from the line in the fourth quarter, I would have told you that you were crazy," Mock said. "It's crazy because we shoot every day. Maybe it was our legs. You try to mimic game speed but you can't always do that."
Cassie Mock led Central with 13 points. Callihan finished with 14. Westmont will play West Shamokin, which lost to Everett, on Monday in a consolation semifinal game. Five teams from District 6 3A move on to states.
WESTMONT HILLTOP (30): Callihan 3 6-8 14, Davis 2 0-0 5, Brant 0 0-0 0, Krall 0 0-0 0, Shriver 2 1-2 6, Gardill 0 1-2 1, Droz 0 0-0 0, Lavis 0 0-0 0. Totals -- 9 8-12 30.
CENTRAL (40): C. Mock 5 1-4 13, Metzger 3 4-8 10, J. Mock 0 1-2 1, Brumbaugh 3 0-0 8, Metzler 3 2-3 8, Eicher 0 0-0 0. Totals -- 14 8-17 40.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Westmon Hilltop 7 7 7 9 -- 30
Central 12 13 5 10 -- 40
3-point goals: Westmont Hilltop 4 (Callihan 2, Davis Shriver), Central 4 (C. Mock 2, Brumbaugh 2)
Records: Westmon Hilltip (14-9), Central (20-3)
Officials: Enoch Ferencz, Ed Hall, Tyler Fink.