Beaver girls use balanced scoring to top Belle Vernon in Class 4A quarterfinals

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, February 22, 2018 | 9:54 PM

Third-seeded Beaver's offensive firepower proved to be too much for No. 6 Belle Vernon on Thursday night as the Bobcats topped the Leopards, 63-32, in a WPIAL Class 4A quarterfinal at Canon-McMillan.

Four Bobcats finished in double figures, including Sydney Barney and Bella Posset, who scored 16 and 15 points, respectively.

Paige Ziggas finished with 14 and Emma Pavelek added 11.

“They are a really good team all the way around,” Belle Vernon coach Lisa Fairman said. “We knew coming in that they had five solid players on the court and any one of them can score in double digits. You can't just zone in on one or two, and it does make it difficult.”

Leading by 13 points at halftime, the Bobcats (17-5) began to put things out of reach in the third quarter, outscoring the Leopards, 19-3, in the frame.

Posset and Barney accounted for 15 of the 19 points for Beaver, which held a commanding 48-19 advantage over Belle Vernon (18-6) after 24 minutes of play.

“Defensively, I came out in the second half the same way I started the game because I truly felt that it wasn't the defense causing the problem,” Fairman said. “We tried to make some adjustments on offense, but when you have a double-digit lead in the second half like they did and we're sitting in a zone, the clock is not your friend.

“I couldn't afford to sit in a zone and let them work 40 or 50 seconds off the clock. At that point, we had to resort to just trying to pressure and trying to get steals.”

After a 3-pointer from Belle Vernon's Caitlyn Trombley, who finished with eight points, the Bobcats went on an 8-0 run over the next two and a half minutes to go up 8-3.

A floater and a free throw from Keira Boff cut the Leopards' deficit to three, but a trey from Ziggas followed by a pair of foul shots from Barney pushed Beaver's lead to seven with 1:22 left.

A late layup by Kelsey Green allowed the Leopards to pull to within five at the end of the first quarter.

“I honestly thought it was a great quarter, defensively,” Fairman said. “Maybe we were a little gun-shy with a little bit of nerves in the first quarter.”

Belle Vernon scored five of the first seven points of the second quarter on two free throws from Boff and a three-point play by Lindsay Steeber, who scored eight points in the loss.

Leading 15-13, Beaver went on a 14-3 run in the final 5:20 of the frame to take a 29-16 edge into halftime.

“I actually don't think we necessarily played poor, defensively, in the first half,” Fairman said. “We kind of did our job, we closed out, but our issue was giving them two or three opportunities. I don't think we did a very good job on the defensive boards.”

Beaver advanced to Monday's semifinals to face No. 2 Blackhawk at a time and site to be determined.

Jose Negron is a freelance writer.

Tags: Beaver, Belle Vernon