Deer Lakes girls can’t overcome slow start in first-round loss to Central Valley

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, February 17, 2018 | 8:36 PM

Deer Lakes girls basketball coach Dave Petruska told his players all week that it wasn't going to be easy and to be prepared for a different brand of basketball. His words should have resonated with his players as more of warning rather than some friendly advice.

The Lancers kept things close throughout, but Central Valley's size, shooting and grit proved to be the difference as No. 12 seed Deer Lakes fell to the No. 5 Warriors, 51-42, in the first round of the WPIAL Class 4A playoffs at North Hills Middle School on Saturday afternoon.

“I have seen it for quite some time now. Beaver County schools play physical basketball,” said Petruska after the loss. “I knew that going into it, and I let my girls know as much as possible (all week), but there's only so much that you can tell them. They have to experience it for themselves.”

Central Valley (16-5) moves on to face No. 4 Keystone Oaks (17-4) on Thursday at site and time to be determined. The loss marks the third consecutive year in which Deer Lakes' season ended at the hands of a Beaver County school. The Lancers lost to Beaver, 47-28, last season and to Blackhawk in 2015, with both coming in the first-round.

“We didn't play real well,” said Central Valley coach Chris Raso. “It shouldn't be nerves. We've been here the last three years, but that's a credit to Deer Lakes.”

The Warriors came out in the first quarter and caught the Deer Lakes (9-14) zone defense off guard with their perimeter shooting. Madison Hiltz made a 3-pointer to open the scoring, and Kaitlyn Lyons added another 3-pointer the next time down the floor to give the Warriors the lead for good at 6-0. Lancers junior guard Abby Buechel connected on a 3-pointer to put her team on the board, but the Warrior barrage of 3-pointers kept coming. Central Valley connected on five 3-pointers to get out of the first quarter with a 17-11 lead.

“They shot the ball well in the first half,” Petruska said. “They came ready to play and ready to shoot compared what I saw on film.”

Central Valley ran up a 21-11 lead with 5 minutes, 53 seconds remaining in the second quarter before Deer Lakes junior Victoria Keibler fell and was shaken up after crossing through the middle of the bruising Warriors defense. Keibler sat out for the rest of the second quarter. The 5-foot-5 guard returned in the second half but wasn't the same the rest of the way.

Both teams struggled shooting, play became sloppy in the second quarter. But the Lancers couldn't take advantage of Central Valley's mistakes and went into halftime trailing 26-17.

“That second quarter, it didn't completely kill us,” Petruska said. “We got down early on, and once it happened, it was hard to overcome and it was hard to get it back.”

Deer Lakes guard Anna Solomon came out in the third quarter and made a jumper to bring the score to 29-20 but the physical Warriors defense again prevented the Deer Lakes offense from mounting any kind of run to get back into the game. Solomon finished with a game-high 16 points.

“It seemed like every time we got some momentum going, and we just couldn't get over the hump,” Petruska said.

Central Valley forward Kaylee Underwood started to get some looks down low and scored six points in the third quarter to pace the Warriors offense. Underwood scored 10 of her team-high 12 points in the second half.

“When you have the advantage that you have in the post, you should be able to get the ball inside, too,” Raso said. “(The post) started to open up, and we started to make some passes from where we're supposed to enter the ball from.”

Deer Lakes did't go away. Solomon made another 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, and Buechel added a jumper to draw the score to 42-33 with a little more than 4 minutes remaining.

“We had lots of opportunities. I saw lots of fight, and there was no quit,” Petruska said. “It says a lot about my team that in the last 12 seconds of the game they played as hard as the the other 32 minutes.”

William Whalen is a freelance writer.

Tags: Central Valley, Deer Lakes