Shots don't fall for Benton in loss

SUNBURY — Sometimes its how one plays in the beginning that ultimately decides the end result.
For Benton, that is exactly what happened as it was unable to drain some open looks and slow down Lourdes in a 59-45 defeat in the District 4 Class A girls basketball championship Thursday night.

The Tigers now play District 3 third-place winner between Veritas Academy and Mt. Calvary on March 7.

With the teams trading points in the early going, Tigers’ Malaia Hart had an opportunity to tie the game at 9-9 with a 3-pointer. Instead, as was par for Benton, the ball bounced in and out of the rim. Lourdes never looked back from that point, going on an 18-6 run that carried over into the second quarter — including a 7-0 streak after the opening frame — to take a 29-16 lead.

The Tigers never got closer than eight points. They did, however, show life coming out of a timeout called by coach Harry Schlichter.

“I didn’t feel like we were playing defensively hard enough and I didn’t think we were rebounding hard enough,” he said. “I basically wanted us to just be more physical on defense and stop be flat footed. I wanted them to get after it and rebound.”

The Tigers got the message. In the middle frames, they matched the Red Raiders, a team Schlichter says is one of the top-three in the state, point-for-point. Elaina Lockard and Malaia Hart led the charge, scoring 21 of their 29 combined points in the middle frames.

The Tigers had a scare late in the third when Hart went down to the court with a knee injury. She came out wincing, but was determined to finish the championship game with her teammates.

“In the first practice for districts, she hyperextended her knee so we were really worried about her coming into districts,” Schlichter said. “The trainers have worked with her and she’s got herself nearly back to right. I think more than anything she tweaked it. She scared herself, but she’ll be alright. … Unless there was blood or something, she wasn’t coming off that floor.”

Benton needed all of the valiant effort it could get for a comeback attempt, including Lockard’s five rebounds and Kayanna Krall’s eight points and six rebounds.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t slow down the Raiders’ offensive attack as it not only matched the Tigers in the middle frames, but opened the fourth quarter on a 6-0 run to put the game on ice. Lourdes had four starters — Kylla Sandri (12), Onaleigh Barnes (13), Sophia Karlovich (14) and Hannah Lokitis (18) — post double-digit points.

The Raiders took what they could get. When speeding up the game wasn’t an option, often resulting in takeaways, they took their time passing the ball until the open person was there — almost as if to bore the Tigers into submission.

Still, Schlichter isn’t going to hang his head on the loss. He took away a lot of good from the Tigers’ performance.

“I thought, for the most part, we played a good offensive game,” he said. “We didn’t make some shots, and had we made a couple of more that would have changed how they would have to play us a little bit. Overall, I’m happy with the offense, though. We competed with Lourdes and I want to see how far we go in the state bracket.”

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