Box Score

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Down by 10 points at halftime, the Lycoming College women’s basketball team scored the first 15 points of the second half and never looked back, clinching the fifth and final Commonwealth Conference playoff slot with a 49-39 win against Albright on Tuesday night, Feb. 12.
 
The Warriors (8-15 overall, 8-9 Commonwealth) shot 48 percent from the floor in the second half and forced 12 turnovers while holding the Lions (11-13 overall, 7-10 Commonwealth) to just 30 percent, helping them clinch their first playoff spot since making the Middle Atlantic Conference playoffs in 2000. The Warriors will play in the play-in game of the conference playoffs as the No. 5 seed, travelling to No. 4 seed Elizabethtown on Monday, Feb. 18.
 
“I couldn’t be happier,” senior Rachael Scheller (Sunbury, Pa./Shikellamy) said. “We’ve tried so hard to make the playoffs all four years. This year we had another chance and we finally came through. Everyone played our hearts out.”
 
Down 23-13, the Warriors came storming out of the gate in the second half as sophomore Janelle Ziminski (Drums, Pa./Hazleton Area) finished a steal from freshman Olivia Manges (York, Pa./West York) with a fastbreak layup, starting the run of 15 straight points. The run was finished as Ziminski poked a ball out and finished off another layup before Manges hit a jumper to give Lycoming a 28-23 lead with 13:30 left.
 
“That was a huge win for us,” 20^th-year head coach Christen Ditzler said. “What made it even more special is we came back from a dismal first half. We talked about it at halftime. We were jittery, we were tense. We hadn’t been in this position in a while and although, it’s a good position we’re in, we weren’t handling it well. They relaxed. Our defense made us go and we did a great job.”
 
The Warriors got the lead to as many as eight, when junior Julia Antonelli (Hanover, Pa./New Oxford) finished off an old-fashioned 3-point play to make it 35-27 with 7:47 left. The Lions closed within two points with a 8-2 run that made it 37-35 with 4:38 left, but Lycoming responded as Antonelli spun off her defender in the lane for an easy deuce and after both teams missed a pair of shots, Scheller grabbed an offensive rebound and was fouled. She hit both her free throws to give Lycoming a 41-35 lead with 2:12 left.
 
After a fastbreak layup by Kelecia Harris with 59 ticks left, the Warriors scored eight points in a row, with Antonelli converting four free throws before Ziminski and Manges wrapped up the win with fastbreak buckets.
 
“We talked at halftime about penetrating,” Ditzler said. “They were giving us lanes to the hoop, so we finally did that and did some nice things with the ball.”
 
During the first half, Albright built a 10-point lead despite being forced into 13 turnovers, as Lycoming struggled from the field, hitting just 19 percent (5-of-26) from the field.
 
The Lions took the lead with a 3-pointer with 16:50 left in the first half by Jessica Venturelli and were able to expand it late in the half. Manges scored on a fastbreak layup with 7:06 left to cut the Lions’ lead to 18-13, but Albright scored the last five points in the half, with the last point coming off a free throw with 3:03 left, to take a 23-13 lead into the half.
 
Antonelli led the Warriors with 15 points and nine rebounds, becoming the ninth player in school history to cross 500 career boards in the process. Manges added 12 points, two rebounds, four steals and two assists and Ziminski posted 10 points, two assists and two rebounds. Scheller notched nine points, five assists and two steals while playing all 40 minutes on Senior Night. Sophomore Kat Andriani (Ephrata, Pa./Ephrata) also played well, posting nine rebounds and three blocks.
 
Kelecia Harris, the defending Commonwealth Conference Player of the Week, was held to nine points, six rebounds and three steals to lead the Lions and Emily O’Donnell added eight points and five rebounds. Tara Sobotchick notched seven points and Meghan Boyle posted six points and six rebounds.
 
The Warriors wrap up the regular season on Saturday, Feb. 16, with a doubleheader at Hood. The women will tip at 1 p.m. before the men play at 3 p.m.