What can Brown do for you? Bellefonte girls basketball defeats Philipsburg-Osceola
Bellefonte girls basketball entered Tuesday night’s game against Philipsburg-Osceola winless with an 0-9 record, but one wouldn’t be able to tell with the effort that the team showed.
The Lady Raiders’ doggedness on the glass and pressing defense caused problems for the Lady Mounties. Bellefonte’s leading scorer was sophomore forward Taylor Brown, who cleaned the glass and finished with 17 points.
So, what was the key to her offensive performance?
“My teammates constantly having my back and always giving me the ball and being there for me,” Brown said.
No one was more emblematic of the team’s toughness than Lady Raiders junior guard Mackenzie Ellenberger. She took a shot to the face, leaving the game briefly with a large welt under her right eye. She returned and immediately had a large presence on the defensive end with a flurry of steals and scores in transition on the offensive side of the ball.
Bellefonte head coach Marcus Toomer is proud of her display of grittiness on the court and looks for the rest of his team to play with the junior’s energy on a nightly basis.
“That’s something that we’ve been trying to instill in our team is to play with a lot of toughness, a lot of grit,” Toomer said. “Mackenzie being able to take an elbow to the face and still come back and continue to play the way that she’s been playing and fight through that really kind of shows the rest of the team that this is how you go out there to dominate and win games.”
The Lady Raiders began the game with strong scoring by Brown, who had eight points to lead their scoring charge. Madison Ripka made a 3-point field goal and Ellenberger, Emma Rossman and Maria Cotter each had two points. Philipsburg-Osceola began with four points each from Khendyl Sharrer and Lily Warlow to trail 17-8 at the end of the first quarter.
Bellefonte started off with another strong performance in the second quarter with Brown adding five more points to cap off a total 13 points in the opening half. Ripka had another 3-pointer and a jump shot to finish with five points in the quarter and Brown found Jaylee Lose for a buzzer-beating layup to end the half with a 29-18 lead.
The Lady Mounties still continued to scrape and claw in the second quarter, diving for loose balls and chasing down rebounds. Sharrer continued her scoring output with four points in the quarter, along with Warlow adding three. Emily Gustkey added two points, while Maddy Malinich went 1-of-2 from the line for one point at the conclusion of the half.
Brown scored two more points in the third quarter, but Cotter caught fire with two made 3-point field goals. Ripka and Rossman had two points, while Lose blocked shots and pulled down rebounds, scoring three points for a 44-30 lead. Philipsburg-Osceola’s Sharrer finished with 14 points and Warlow had nine points in the game to fall 59-32.
Philipsburg-Osceola head coach Brandon Myers saw more from his team on the offensive end on Tuesday. He’d like the same to be replicated defensively in the next game.
“Our offense overall was better,” Myers said. “This was probably the first game where our offense out-played our defense. Defensively, they beat us. They were stronger and bigger than us down low and that was the difference in the game. We got to the foul line, which we hadn’t been doing a ton. We converted on some foul shots and the offense just looked better. We’re taking it one day at a time.”
The Lady Rams will host Hollidaysburg on Friday at 7:30 p.m., while Bellefonte has an away matchup with Tyrone at the same time.
Bellefonte 59, Philipsburg-Osceola 32
B (1-9): Brown 17, Cotter 14, Ripka 10, Lose 7, Ellenberger 5, Rossman 4, Hamilton 2
PO (3-6): Sharrer 14, Warlow 9, Gustkey 4, Milinich 3, Wood 2
