By Joshua Yoder

MIFFLINTOWN – To say that both teams left everything out on the court, would be an incredible understatement as the game literally went down to the final seconds of the game. However it ultimately was the St. Joe’s Wolfpack who ended up defeating the Williamsburg Blue Pirates by the final score of 68-67 during the District 6 Class A third place girls basketball game Thursday night over at Juniata High School.

“It was a huge win!” Wolfpack coach Bethany Irwin said. “Two of our losses from last year came from Williamsburg, so we’ve been improving greatly, but we can always be better.”

The Blue Pirates came out hot on offense in the early part of the first quarter. As the period went on, Naomi Crispin showcased why she is shooting 50 percent per game from the field as Crispin willed her team back scoring 15 of the 18 total points for the Wolfpack for the opening quarter. But it still was Williamsburg who led after one with the score being 22-18.

But Crispin continued to let the ball fly in the second quarter. One could say she could be hitting shots from the parking lot, Crispin just could not miss. In fact, Crispin scored 18 of the 23 points scored in the period for St. Joe’s.

The Wolfpack defense also made their presence felt during the second quarter, as they held the Blue Pirates to just 12 points for the period thanks to solid defensive play from Crispin, Alexia Luckovich, Aubrey Yartz, Jacee Cunningham and Layla Fetzer who all contributed to keeping the Williamsburg shot attempts to a minimum. With those combined efforts, St. Joe’s took a 41-34 lead heading into halftime.

But the Blue Pirates were not going to go away quietly as they immediately turned their attention to slowing down Crispin. In charge of that task was LeeAnna Royer who had nine points for the game. Royer made sure to not let Crispin out of her sight and made many shots difficult for her. The plan worked as Williamsburg held Crispin to just 16 points for the whole second half, while scoring 33 points in the first half.

“She is a really good player,” Royer said of Crispin. “I just needed to deny her the ball and keep her from scoring like she did in the first half.”

Williamsburg were able to close the game within two with the score at 62-60 with just over a minute and a half remaining in the game. But then the St. Joe’s defense led by Yartz, Cunningham and Fetzer started clamping down on the Blue Pirates which allowed fast break points and key shots from Luckovich as well as Crispin to close the game at 68-64 with a few seconds remaining.

But to the Blue Pirates credit, they continued to battle with those few seconds as they managed to drop off a big time three ball from Regan Prough as time expired leaving the score at 68-67.

Throughout the game, Williamsburg showcased great ball movement as the Blue Pirates had four different players score at least one for all four quarters of the game. Anastasia Rinalli and Levade Gorsuch led the way with each scoring 19 points each. Prough added another 12 points for them.

On the flip side, the Wolfpack were led by Crispin who dropped 49 points. Lauren Himes hit some key shots and had seven points for the night while Cunningham added another six points. The Wolfpack dropped 10 shots from three point land.

“We were on fire from the outside,” Irwin said.

But despite the big time performance, Crispin believes that she could not have done it without her teammates.

“I think I pushed the pace and forced them to play up,” Crispin said. “We have so many weapons on our team so it is hard for opposing teams to stop just one player.”

St. Joe’s moves up to (24-2) while Williamsburg drops to (20-6). Both teams will wait and see who they will be facing in the State playoffs.

Best of luck to both teams!

ST.JOE’S

Alexia Luckovich 1 2-4 4, Naomi Crispin 18 5-6 49, Jacee Cunningham 3 0-2 6, Layla Fetzer 1 0-0 2, Lauren Himes 2 1-2 7. Totals: 25 8-14 68.

WILLIAMSBURG

Anastasia Rinalli 8 1-2 19, Regan Prough 4 0-0 12, LeeAnna Royer 3 2-4 9, Grace Colbert 2 0-0 6, Levada Gorsuch 8 3-5 19, Raina Alexander 1 0-0 2. Totals: 28 6-11 67.