By Rob Potter
FALLSBURG — January 17, 2003 – The Monticello girls varsity basketball team earned its first win of the season on Monday night.
But the Fallsburg Lady Comets made sure it wasn’t an easy victory.
Monticello (1-5) prevailed in the nip-and-tuck game, 45-39.
With the score knotted at 34-34 with 4:39 remaining in the fourth quarter, thoughts of overtime might have been dancing in the minds of coaches and fans alike.
But the Lady Panthers scored five points in the next two-plus minutes to grab a 39-34 lead with 2:24 left in the final period. On that possession, Monticello guard Ciara Hinton made a nice pass to center Deirdre Smith, who scored two of her game-high 19 points on the play.
Smith scored again a minute later to give Monticello a 43-35 lead.
“It certainly wasn’t a finesse game,” said Monticello Coach Karen Atack, noting the number of fouls committed by both teams and the fact that her team committed over two dozen turnovers. “It really could have gone either way. Both teams played hard and Fallsburg deserves credit.”
Fallsburg (1-6) made 17 trips to the foul line and Monticello attempted 26 free throws in the contest. Neither team shot very well from the charity stripe, however, as each squad converted just eight of the aforementioned attempts.
In addition to Smith’s 19 points, teammates Brady Dollard and Bagina McCline added 11 and seven points, respectively for Monticello. McCline was also credited with pulling down 22 rebounds in the contest.
For the Lady Comets, Jen Orlowsky scored 11 points and Shannon Weigand netted eight points.
“It was a pretty good game,” Fallsburg Coach Charisse Jamroz said. “We’re still learning to work together. We only have two seniors, so most of these girls played together on the junior varsity team last season. I’m still looking for consistency from the players.”