By Rob Potter
ELDRED — February 22, 2011 — High school basketball fans got a preview of the excitement generated by postseason play on Thursday night at Eldred Central School.
The Livingston Manor Lady Wildcats and the Eldred Lady Yellowjackets showed why they both will be difficult opponents for other teams to defeat in the upcoming sectionals as they played a game filled with clutch shooting, great defense and an outcome that wasn’t decided until the final seconds.
Eldred (11-7), which had a 40-29 lead at the end of the third quarter, held off a Manor rally to register a 47-43 victory in the non-league contest.
With 29 seconds left in the game, Eldred’s Sage Owens stepped up to the free-throw line and made the front end of a 1-and-1 to extend her team’s lead to 46-38. But her second shot was off and Manor’s Marissa Diescher grabbed the rebound.
At the other end of the court, Diescher scored a basket while being fouled to cut the Lady Yellowjackets’ advantage to 46-40 with 18 seconds on the clock.
Diescher missed her free throw, but Manor regained possession of the basketball with 14 seconds to go. Following the inbound pass, Diescher made a 3-point shot to make it a 46-43 game.
But Eldred senior guard Kim Elvin swished a free throw with nine seconds remaining to seal the win for her team.
With two minutes remaining in the first quarter, Manor’s Paige Clancy made a free throw to even the score at 10-10.
But the Lady Yellowjackets answered with a 9-0 run to close out the quarter. Guard Sam Ferguson made two 3-point shots during the run, the second of which went in the basket as the buzzer sounded.
Manor (13-4) cut the Lady Yellowjackets’ lead to 28-21 at halftime.
With 4:25 to go in the third period, Manor’s Kiera Browne made a free throw to bring her team within four at 32-28.
Yet again, Eldred responded with a scoring run. Owens made a jump shot, Meaghan Hazen swished a foul shot, Elvin scored inside the lane and Ferguson swished another 3-pointer to extend the Lady Yellowjackets’ advantage to 40-28 with 2:10 remaining in the quarter.
Manor’s Angela Zayas made a free throw with 1:08 on the clock to cut the Eldred lead to 11 points entering the fourth quarter.
Owens recorded a double-double of a team-high 18 points and 11 rebounds. Ferguson had 10 points, Hazen finished with nine points and Elvin netted six points.
Hazen grabbed seven rebounds and Elvin made six steals.
“We played great defense, especially in the first half,” Eldred Coach Jolene Porter said. “As a team, we had 32 rebounds and 16 steals.”
Porter also liked how her team was able to knock down shots at key moments of the game.
“Sam Ferguson made some big shots from the outside,” Porter said.
Porter was not surprised that Manor made a comeback in the second half.
“They are a good team and they don’t quit,” she said of the Lady Wildcats.
For Manor, Diescher scored a game-high 26 points, Monay Allen had six points and Browne netted five points.
“Foul shots and rebounding were the difference in the game,” Manor Coach Kevin Clifford said. “And Eldred shot the ball very well tonight.”
Manor, however, did not shoot well at the line, making only 6 of 19 (32 percent) of its free throws.
With the seeding meeting for the Section IX basketball tournaments slated to be held on Thursday evening, Eldred and Manor will know who they are playing and where they are playing those games once the tournaments begin next week. Eldred will be playing in the Class C tournament, while Manor will be competing in the Class D tourney.