Central York downs Kennard-Dale to win tourney
The Central York girls' basketball team brought home some hardware Saturday afternoon, defeating Kennard-Dale, 60-24, in the championship game of Penn Manor's tip-off tournament.
Junior guard Emma Saxton earned tournament MVP honors after scoring a combined 33 points on Friday and Saturday.
Similar to the previous night, the Panthers started the game slow and allowed their opponent to take an early lead. The Rams went up 7-1 off three straight baskets from Sara Pilkey, including a 3-pointer. Central's Teirra Preston hit a jumper to cut the deficit to 7-3, and Saxton scored the Panthers' next seven points to take the lead.
“We just didn’t shoot the ball well early and put ourselves in a hole,” Central head coach Scott Wisner said. “But we figured if we stayed the course that our pressure was going to be enough for us. (Saxton) definitely deserves (tournament MVP). She played fantastic on both ends of the floor.”
The Panthers continued to run the gauntlet after taking the lead, building a 26-14 halftime advantage. Saxton sank two free throws near the end of the third quarter to build a 21-point lead.
Saxton finished the game with 16 points and went 4-for-7 at the free-throw line. Nikson Valencik put up 15 points of her own for Central and shot 5-for-8 from the line. Pilkey led the Rams in scoring with nine points.
The Panthers will take the wins to open the new season and Wisner called it a good start, but he saw things for his team to work on before league play starts Tuesday, particularly the team’s back-to-back slow starts.
“Hopefully it’s going to change a little bit,” Wisner said. “But right now that’s something we’re definitely talking about and trying to figure out why we come out to slow starts. Hopefully we can adjust that a little bit."
"We wanted to be able to utilize our pressure against both teams," Wisner said. "We feel good where we are with that.”
Central York (60)
Nikson Valcenik 5 5-8 15, Fabbri 2 1-3 8, Stanton 1 0-0 2, Wagner 0 2-2 2, Emma Saxton 6 4-7 16, Williams 2 0-0 4, Sepic 2 0-0 7, Shellenberger 1 0-0 2, Santana 0 0-0 0, Teirra Preston 2 0-0 4. Totals — 21 12-20 60
Kennard-Dale (24)
Pilkey 1 0-0 2, Halczuk 0 1-4 1, Kincaid 0 0-0 0, Thomas 0 0-0 0, Locke 0 0-0 0, Pilkey 3 0-0 9, Anderson 1 0-1 2, Boone 0 2-2 2, Martonick 0 1-2 1 Dressel 2 0-0 4, Freese 0 3-5 5. Totals — 7 7-14 24
Central York _ 12 _ 14 _ 14 _ 20 _ — _ 60
Kennard-Dale _ 9 _ 5 _ 5_ 5_ — _ 24
3-point goals — CY 2 (Fabbri 1, Sepic 1), KD 1 (Sara Pilkey 1).