Hornets fight off Indians, 37-35

By: Ed Weaver  /  February 24, 2015

The Wellsboro Varsity Boys Basketball team fought off Muncy for a 37-35 victory in the first round of District IV Class AA playoffs on Monday, February 23.

Muncy jumped out to an early 6-2 lead in the first quarter before the Hornets settled down defensively. The Hornets held the Indians to only two more first quarter points as they closed the gap to 8-7 at the end of the first.

Muncy stayed on top for the second quarter as they outscored Wellsboro 10-9 and would hold an 18-16 lead as the first half ended.

The Hornets would take their first lead of the game with 6:30 showing on the clock in the third quarter as Senior Michael Pietropola hit a layup in traffic. From that point on the game was neck and neck, with both teams trading the lead. Wellsboro would hold on to lead 27-26 at the end of the third as Pietropola hit another layup, this time as time expired.

The fourth quarter was a low scoring quarter as both teams again traded the lead. Wellsboro would eventually go up four points with under a minute remaining. Muncy cut the game to two points with under 20 seconds remaining, forcing the Hornets to call a timeout before inbounding the ball with a 37-35 lead.

The Hornets beat Muncy’s full-court press and tried to hold the ball until time expired, but an errant pass turned the ball back over to the Indians with 6.6 seconds left in the game. Muncy pushed the ball up the court as time expired, but before the final shot, Muncy was called for traveling to give the ball back to Wellsboro and giving them the victory.

Pietropola was the game’s leading scorer with 17 points, Senior Kieron Smethers had seven, Sophomores Brandon Lamphier and Alden Weiner each finished with four points, Freshman Quinn Henry added three, and Junior Dawson Prough had two.

"We found a way to win tonight," said head coach Todd Outman. "I wasn't sure how this was going to pan out, but the kids continued to play hard and continued to fight and got stops when we needed to."

The Hornets will now take on the #2 seed Towanda Black Knights on Wednesday, February 25 at Mansfield University with a 7:00 p.m. start.

The last time the Hornets played Towanda the Black Knights rallied from a 14 point halftime deficit to beat Wellsboro by three. Outman knows what the team needs to do to stop them this time.

"We need to stop (Noah) Huff's dribble penetration, that's what beat us in the second half of the last game," Outman continued. "We've worked on that in practice and I think we'll be better at stopping it this time."