Playing with heart; CM girls fall but roll in second half

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: December 23, 2018

By Kenny Varner

LOCK HAVEN – After suffering through an 0-22 season, last year. The upstart Central Mountain girl’s team seems to be going in the right direction after a strong second half performance on Saturday.

Character is something that is that helps builds young teams into a strong program.

After falling behind early in their contest with Mifflinburg, the Lady Wildcats refused to give up or cash it in as they battled back to cut the Mifflinburg victory to just a 16-point loss.

In the first quartet, Mifflinburg outscored Central Mountain 15-5. Riley Griffith has seven while Reamer had three.

Central Mountain got three from McCann and and two from Olivia Anastas.

It was a sense of De Ja Vue in the second as Mifflinburg and Central Mountain scored 15-5 in the period as well.

This time Anastas had a triple while McCann had a field goal.

Mifflinburg got four from both Griffith and Reamer.

Trailing by as many as 26, the Central Mountain offense came alive in the second to outscore Mifflinburg 23-17 in the second, tallying the final score at 50-34.

Sparking the second half rally was the outside shooting of Mia Kopysciansky who blistered the Mifflinburg defense for 13 points.

All of her points came in the third and fourth periods.

Quinlynn McCann was a steady presence through out, posting seven points.

Mifflinburg were by two strong guard performances.

Leading the way for the visitors was Riley Griffith, who finished with a game-High 17-point performance.

Following Griffith on the scorebook was Angela Reamer who posted 12 points. Most of her points came off of steals early in the contest.

“Everything we do this year is a learning experience for us. We are trying to grow the program of course. We are coming from an 0-22 team so any growth we see is a positive,” Central Mountain coach Scott Baker. “What I was encouraged by was offensively we were not very not very good in the first half and not aggressive enough that was the biggest problem. I thought in the second half we asked them to do a few things at halftime that would allow them to do somethings and be a little more aggressive. They did a good job of doing that so those are the little victories we are looking for.”

Trailing 30-10 at the intermission, Central Mountain got down early as Mifflinburg broke out with a 6-0 run, upping it 36-10.

But the rest of the period belonged to Central Mountain.

Kopysciansky got things rolling for the home team as she hit a jumper.

After a Mifflinburg turnover, Morgan Wetzel got a bucket with 2:05 left in the third.

Mifflinburg’s Mollie Bomgardner hit 2-of-2 from the line, making it a 38-14 lead.

But Central Mountain outscored Mifflinburg the rest of the way, ended the period on a 5-0.

Trailing 38-19 going into the final stanza, the Central Mountain defense continued to feed its offense the ball.

In a tight back and forth quarter, Kopysciansky came alive from the outside as she posted two more triples while teammates Maddy Smith, Avery Baker, Summer Flanagan and McCann all scored.

Baker Posted three points in the period while the others chipped in with two each.

Mifflinburg was led in scoring in the final stanza by Hayley Yoder and Riley Griffith with four each.

When the dust settled, the Central Mountain girls chipped away into the Mifflinburg lead but fell 50-34.