RED LETTER DAY
HERSHEY — Mount Carmel proved Thursday afternoon that depth and complimentary players go a long way.
The Red Tornadoes were in need of such early, losing starter Mia Chapman in the first quarter to an apparent knee injury. They missed her on the court but overcame her absence in a 54-43 win to capture the PIAA Class 2A girls basketball championship — a first in Mount Carmel program history.
“When Mia went down, it was disheartening. She’s awesome on defense,” Mount Carmel’s Danni Rae Renno said. “We were going to put her on Neleh Nogay, but everybody else stepped up and played D in her absence. We couldn’t have gotten here without her.”
Her injury gave the Red Tornadoes more motivation to walk out of the Giant Center as winners.
“What happened to Mia really sucks, but we told her ‘hey, we’re going to win this for you,’” teammate Alyssa Reisinger said. “When she went down, I felt so bad for her, but we went back out and played really strong. It would have been better with her, but we won this for her.”
Mount Carmel got the same defensive look from Neshannock as it has seen for much of the season — with Renno getting double-teamed.
It took a little bit for the Tornadoes to find their offensive groove. Once they did, they started to take over the game, going on a 9-0 run that spanned from late in the first quarter to well into the second to give them a nine-point lead.
Reisinger, coming off the bench, proved she was up to the task of picking things up offensively. With the defense giving her a lot of open looks, she went into halftime with a game-high 11 points. She finished with 12.
“Dani has drawn a lot of double-team coverage throughout the year,” Mount Carmel coach Lisa Varano said. “There always seems to be somebody who picks it up... Today it was Alyssa Reisinger coming off the bench. We knew they couldn’t double both of them on the post and we figured that was going to be an advantage for us.
“Alyssa did a great job, but the guards also did a great job of finding her and getting her the ball. It was a total team effort.”
Teams can only keep Renno from taking over the game for so long. In the third quarter, she and Lauren Shedleski took over, scoring all 16 points (eight apiece) in the frame.
Renno scored another eight in the fourth quarter to finish with a game-high 24. Shedleski finished with 10.
Just as impressive was the Tornadoes’ defense. They never got in foul trouble, with the Lancers only attempting two free throws. The Tornadoes also held the Lancers’ bench to zero points and challenged them on almost every possession in the middle quarters.
That bode well for the Tornadoes as the Lancers needed to cut into the deficit but instead cut into the time.
“It always means a lot when you can defend for 30, 40 seconds on one play,” Renno said. “I think our offense rolls fast and that definitely helped because we were able to score and then have them run the clock down on the other end.”
The Lancers also had three players — Nogay, Addilae Watts and Mairan Haggerty — finish with 10 or more points.
Neshannock gave it one last chance late, going to a man defense — something that worked out in the final minutes of the semifinals — and having its best offensive run (8-0).
“We talked to the girls about not counting (Neshannock) out,” Varano said. “Their pressure has frazzled some teams and they’ve come back to win games. They were taking a lot of time in their offensive possessions, but as long as we stayed disciplined defensively, we had a lot of ground to make up. ... I thought the girls did a great job defensively.”
In the end, it was the Tornadoes cutting the nets as state champions — a first for a team that has never advanced past the second round of the state tournament.
“It’s just the best feeling of the world knowing we won our last game,” Renno said. “We all put it all out on the floor. We wouldn’t have wanted it to end any other way, and I wouldn’t have wanted to win this with anyone else. These are all my best friends.”
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