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Greenwood gets late, free help

Stroup sinks 7 free throws in win

Sentinel photo by MATT STRICKER
East Juniata’s Clarye Guyer, left, goes to the board against Greenwood defender Kenedy Stroup Tuesday in Cocolamus.

COCOLAMUS — It went down to the wire but Greenwood was able to pull out the win thanks in large to the efforts of Kenedy Stroup helping the Wildcats to a 28-21 victory over East Juniata in a Tri-Valley League girls basketball game Tuesday.

“It’s a league opener and that was what we said before the game so it was important,” Wildcats coach Jeff Deitz said. “It was important to get the W in the league and we didn’t play as good as we wanted to over the weekend so, coming in here 0-2 it was definitely a little added incentive. We felt like even though its only game number three it was a must win situation and that’s what we were able to do.”

Heading into the fourth quarter the score was tied at 17 and yet, like most of the game, neither Greenwood or East Juniata were able to truly maintain control of the tempo.

That was when Stroup made her move cutting her way into the paint, drawing fouls and getting herself to the free throw line. Stroup dropped seven of eight shots at the line scoring seven of the 11 points in the final quarter for the Wildcats. Stroup led Greenwood with nine points.

“I thought we really stepped up in the fourth quarter. I thought Kenedy Stroup was really good orchestrating our offense,” Deitz said. “I thought she controlled the tempo of our offense really well. I thought our bigs made excellent decisions with the ball in the post knowing to take the kick out rather than trying to force shots and we made foul shots. You shoot 75 percent from the free throw line good things are going to happen.”

The Tigers had several chances to in the fourth quarter to but failed to execute their offense leaving a lot of points off the board.

“We have to learn to finish I know some of those girls are young but I have three seniors out there we need to finish our lay ups,” Tigers coach Denis Leister said.

East Juniata struggled with shots not falling for much of the game, primarily in the first half where the Tigers failed to reach digit scoring by halftime Also according to Leister is that the team is struggling to find that go to player.

“Same thing didn’t finish we didn’t push the ball I thought we had the opportunities that look like we had two home runs and made the wrong pass or just didn’t go to the basket strong,” Leister said. “We need to start going to the basket strong to finish or get foul. In the first half we weren’t drawing the foul because we weren’t going strong to the basket.

“We don’t have a girl that wants the ball and I’m going to score and that’s a problem,” Leister continued. “We know we should hold them around 40 and play good defense. 27 was great but 21 is not going to win a lot of basketball games.”

The first half wasn’t much better for the Wildcats as the East Juniata defense held Greenwood to just 10 points. Deitz doesn’t seem too worried about it.

“Our style we’re not going to light up the scoreboard we haven’t for three years,” Deitz said. “We’d like to score more points but we looks at we want to just out score our opponent. If we’re able to hold our to 21 points, 22 points is fine with me.

“That’s just two teams playing good tight zone defenses and it’s early in the season so the legs aren’t there yet for either team,” Deitz continued. “I wouldn’t expect to see this game at Greenwood in a couple of months both offenses are going to get going. There are some quality players on both sides of the floor.”

The Tigers won the JV game by the final score of 31-16 with Kierstyn Fogle leading the Tigers with 12 points while Abby Taylor and Ella Brummer each scored four points for the Wildcats.

Greenwood (1-2, 1-0) hosts Midd-West while East Juniata (1-2, 0-1) travels to Newport. Both games will be played on Friday.

Greenwood 28, East Juniata 21

GREENWOOD

Kenedy Stroup 1 7-10 9, Ally Crockett 1 0-0 2, Grace Lesh 0 2-4 2, Jenna Sherrick 0 2-2 2, Alli Walton 3 0-0 6, Mallory Kauffman 3 1-4 7. Totals: 8 12-20 28.

Did not score: Hayley Engle, Abby Taylor, Hannah Gorman

EAST JUNIATA

Paris Feltman 0 2-4 2, Clayre Guyer 1 0-0 2, Thea Neimond 2 1-2 5, Lily Sankey 1 5-8 7, Haley Lash 2 1-2 5. Totals: 6 9-16 21.

Did not score: Ashlynn Searer, Carly Beaver, Molly Diehl, Bre Terry, Kierstyn Fogle, Leah Sankey, Alyssa Robinson.

Score by quarters

East Juniata 6-2-9-4 — 21

Greenwood 6-4-7-11 — 28

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