F-F Highlights: Greencastle girls handle Shippensburg

The contenders keep stepping up to try to knock the Greencastle-Antrim girls off their Mid Penn Colonial Division perch, and they keep getting rejected.

Friday night, Shippensburg gave it a shot, but the Blue Devils jumped in front early and never let the Lady Hounds get close in a 50-32 victory.

“That was the best overall game we’ve played this year,” G-A coach Mike Rhine said. “It was only our second home game. I think Ship was ready to play, but we got out in transition early and took the momentum.”

Greencastle (8-1, 5-0 MPC) led 18-8 after one quarter and never let Shippensburg (4-6, 3-2 MPC) get inside double figures.

Jenay Faulkner ended her recent scoring slump with 21 points, Morgan Wagaman had nine and Heidi Schanzenbacher and Madison Sweitzer eight each. For Ship, Liz Logan scored 12.

Rhine said, “That was the best game of Heidi’s career, Sunny (Sweitzer) is getting better and Lydia (Crist) had some big shots, passes and steals.That’s the help we need.

“I was worried about this game, because every team in the league is capable of beating anybody else. So it was nice to get ahead early.”

Lock down

When you look at the score by quarters, you might make an assumption that Southern Fulton played some crazy good defense after the first quarter. The Indians led Forbes Road 18-15 after one, then held the Cardinals to 6, 3 and 6 in the last three periods of a 63-30 boys basketball win Friday.

“We even played OK in the first quarter,” SF coach Kent Hendershot said, “but they hit a couple of really tough shots.”

But what got Hendershot excited was his team’s offense.

“I was more happy with the offense tonight,” he said. “We’ve been hammering them to be more patient and to move the ball and tonight it seemed to finally sink in. Our poor offense had been putting pressure on the defense.”

Branden Lynch had a season-high 15 points, matching Dylan Gordon’s total, Chase Varner had 11 and Carl Potter 10. Aaron Schepis led FR with eight points.

“Lynch is starting to come around and be the post player we need to see,” Hendershot said.

McConnellsburg avenges loss

With some strong shooting and a defense that forced 13 turnovers, McConnellsburg easily handled Fannett-Metal, 58-39, in a Sideling Hill/Inter-County Conference boys basketball.

The Spartans (5-3, 5-1 SHL, 4-1 ICC) shot 48 percent from the field and scored 18 points off turnovers, in a game in which they did not trail. Chase Novak scored 16 to lead McConnellsburg.

"We worked on our zone offense because that was something we had struggled with the last couple of weeks," McConnellsburg coach Drew Washabaugh. "I thought we were patient and did a nice job of passing it around."

The Tigers (5-4, 3-3 SHL, 3-2 ICC), which got 14 points from Mikell McGee, had a tough time getting open looks, shooting just 31 percent.

Top performers

Boys basketball

• Cole Christian knocked down 23 points in the Chambersburg's first Mid Penn Commonwealth Division victory of the season, 58-53 over Cumberland Valley, and he got plenty of help from Cade Whitfield, who had 19; Christian was 10-for-10 at the foul line.
• All 12 players got in the score column for Waynesboro in their 80-39 romp over Boiling Springs, led by Mitch Neterer’s 13 points. ’Boro led 27-9 after one quarter of play.
• Shalom Christian's Cameron Roseman scored 19 points (10-for-14 at the foul line) to help the Blazers edge Grace Academy, 51-50.

Girls basketball

• Waynesboro's Cat Weber tallied 18 points in a 56-47 loss to Boiling Springs and is now only 11 points from reaching 1,000 for her career. 
• In the Shalom Christian's 50-34 win over Grace Academy, Brooke Emge tallied 20 points.

SCORES

Boys basketball

Chambersburg (6-4, 1-4 MPC) 58, Cumberland Valley 53
Greencastle-Antrim (7-3, 5-0 MPC) 72, Shippensburg (7-3, 3-2 MPC) 51
Waynesboro (7-3, 4-1 MPC) 80, Boiling Springs 39
McConnellsburg 58, Fannett-Metal 39
Southern Fulton (8-1, 4-0 SHL/3-0 ICC) 63, Forbes Road (5-4, 2-4 SHL/ICC) 30
Shalom Christian (8-3, 3-2 MDCC) 51, Grace Academy 50

Girls basketball

Cumberland Valley 39, Chambersburg (3-8, 0-6 MPC) 28
Greencastle-Antrim 50, Shippensburg 32
Northern York 57, James Buchanan (3-8, 1-4 MPC) 33
Boiling Springs 56, Waynesboro (7-2, 4-1 MPC) 47
Shalom Christian (7-3, 4-1 MDCC) 50, Grace Academy 34