Harrisville turns over shot at title

TROY — The plaque the Harrisville girls basketball team brought home with them Sunday afternoon was silver instead of gold.

The shots that fell for the Pirates in the state Class D semifinals on Saturday did not fall for most of the game Sunday at Hudson Valley Community College.

Section 6's Clymer dominated most of the way, building a lead as large as 21 points and claimed the title with a 49-35 win against the Pirates.

"We made a little run there at the end, but just came up a little bit short today," said Pirates coach Pete Wood. "(Clymer) just took the ball away from us and caused numerous turnovers we normally wouldn't make."

Harrisville (19-5) finished with 27 turnovers Sunday and shot just 9-for-40. The Pirates shot 4-for-23 in the first half.

"I think they are a really good team and we were nervous," said Harrisville's Patty Coloney, who finished with nine points and nine rebounds. "We didn't really have our best game. We didn't have a good shooting day. We usually start slow, but we just didn't come back as much as we usually do in the second half."

Clymer (19-4) scored the first eight points of the game and built a 14-5 lead by the end of the first quarter. Clymer extended that margin to 24-9 by halftime.

But after both teams came back from deficits to win their semifinal games Saturday, Clymer was not taking anything for granted, even with a 15-point halftime lead.

"We knew it was going to be a tough game," said Clymer center Andrea Lictus, who finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. "We know you can't just give up once you get a lead, because we've come back. We didn't want that to be them. At halftime we just said the score was 0-0."

Clymer indeed came out strong at the start of the second half, dominating the game inside and building a 35-14 lead late in the third quarter.

"Defensively, I thought if we put pressure on them early we might take the wind out of their sails," said Clymer coach Dennis Hinsdale. "Our big strength today was rebounding. We couldn't give up second-chance points. We did a fairly decent job of it."

Things looked bleak for the Pirates in the third quarter when senior guard Katlyn Hart suffered an ankle injury and had to leave the game with 5 minutes, 41 seconds left. Then Patty Coloney picked up her fourth foul with 51.5 seconds left in the quarter.

But with Clymer leading 39-21 with 5:30 left in the game the Pirates gave their fans a chance to make some noise, mounting a comeback that got the lead down to 44-33.

Taylor Wood, who hit two big 3-point baskets late in Saturday's semifinal started the rally with a basket that cut the lead to 39-23.

Then Hart, who had just returned to the game after the ankle injury, hit three 3-point baskets in 1:51 to give some more spark to the Pirates.

"I thought I was done for the game and it was my senior game, my last game ever," Hart said. "I wanted that chance (to play) really bad, so I'm glad I got back in. I'll remember that for a while."

Clymer's Lictus was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player and Jenn Rhodes, who scored 11 points, was named to the all-tournament team. Coloney and Hart, who finished with nine points, were named to the all-tournament team for Harrisville.

"It was really exciting," Hart said of the weekend. "I'm glad we did it our senior year."