Beyond the Box Score- Biglerville Girls Tip Off Tournament

So the high school basketball season is underway and I spent the opening night at Biglerville High School for the Girls Tip-Off Tournament.

Read my article here

In the first game, Hanover defeated Littlestown and in Game 2, host Biglerville defeated William Penn

NOTES

• Hanover's full court press was highly effective against Littlestown and resulted in a lot of easy baskets. It doesn't always show up in the box score but Shelby Barnes spearheads the press with her aggressiveness and grittiness.
• It was opening night so nerves definitely played a role but the Hawkettes committed way too many silly fouls. I wasn't at the championship game against Biglerville but saw that the Canners shot 31 free throws which leads me to believe the fouls continued.
• YAIAA Division IV is going to be quite a race with Delone Catholic, Hanover, Biglerville and York Catholic all battling.
• Hanover has depth especially if they get the type of performance out of Zaynah Tracy like they did Friday when she finished with 16 points.
• I was pleasantly surprised with the resiliency and depth of Littlestown. They never gave up and were right in the game against Hanover much of the way. The Lady Bolts made only 2-of-16 free throws and missed at least 10 layups. Despite all of that, they were still within three points midway through the third quarter.
• William Penn has a star in sophomore Chyna Steele. She absolutely took over in the second half. The Bearcats trailed by 20 at the half but Steele scored 18 second half points. She is definitely a star in the making
• For Biglerville, it was a tale of two halves. The Canners dominated the first half but it was as if a different team came out of the locker room in the second half. Fortunately for coach Rob Moore, their lead was large enough to handle the comeback attempt from William Penn.
• Head coach Rob Moore said Friday that despite junior Rebecca Isaac's team-high 13 points, he knew she could and would play better and boy did she. Saturday in their championship win, Isaac had a game-high 31 points.

QUOTES

• "I  thought we started a little rusty and slow. I think the middle of the game they controlled. I wasn't very happy about that. We gotta get smarter and the refs were calling it pretty tight and we recognized that early but we didn't adjust. We put them on the line way to much. We have to learn from that. If the refs are going to call it tight, we have to give space between our girl and the basket and we didn't do that. one thing thats good about tonight is that we are going to learn from it. We are going to come into the gym tomorrow and try to correct our mistakes. I was proud of our girls for turning it on tat the end there and finishing strong." -  head coach Denny Garman on his team's performance
• "We are going to try to be the better conditioned team and wear teams out and Littlestown looked pretty tired at the end. I think thats when we were able to get them a little bit. They got tired." - Garman on the Hawkettes full-court press
• "She didn't get many varsity minutes last year and to come in and start for us and come up like that is huge. To not have a lot of varsity experience and come in and she was kinda leader tonight and thats huge for us. We need production from her." - Garman on the 16-point performance from Zaynah Tracy
• "Shelby is our coach on the floor. She is directing the girls. it is nice to have an extension of me out there. Her and I have been together for 3 years. She understands. She knows what I am thinking. She isn't going to score the most points but she will probably be the most important person on the floor for us most times." - Garman on what senior Shelby Barnes means to the team
• "Two years ago when I was an eighth grader I played AAU with girls my same age. Last year I played up with 10th and 11th graders which is why I probably got better, because I was playing with better people." - Hanover sophomore Zaynah Tracy on what she attributes her success on Friday to.
• "It is actually really cool I didn't really know how many points I had, I thought I had 8 but one of my friends was walking down the hall and she came up to me and said you had 16 points with your sister which is really cool because my sister always scores the most points because she's Zukayna. So it was pretty cool." - Tracy on her hardwork paying off.
• "It was the story of two games. We just lost our composure and I talked about to them about leadership and we have some kids who are not the extrinsic type of leaders and when Isaac fouled out which was kind of interesting because she did the same type of thing last year at the beginning of the season, she just kind of gets jittery, That is a piece of our game that we need to improve upon, our composure." - Biglerville head coach Rob Moore on his teams performance