Slaying The Dragon
KITTANNING — Olivia Boocks stood in a hallway outside of Armstrong High School's gymnasium Tuesday night. Prior to flashing a confident smile, she uttered the words, “I like making history.”
Very fitting, considering she had just helped deliver a huge dose of it to A-C Valley High School.
The Falcons' senior guard, who was recently named MVP of the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference, scored a game-high 18 points as the Falcons took down WPIAL champion Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 35-33 in overtime, in a PIAA Class 2A girls basketball second-round playoff.
The victory matches the Falcons up with District 5's Everett in Friday's quarterfinal round — where A-C Valley's girls have never been.
“These are uncharted waters for us,” said A-C Valley coach Dave Sherman. “Even the boys, they haven't been this far (since 1984). It's fantastic and our girls deserve it.”
A late scoring drought appeared to doom the Falcons. They failed to score for four and a half minutes of the fourth quarter, but Boocks tallied five points — all from the free throw line — in the final 27 seconds.
The final make came with just 1.5 seconds remaining, tying the game at 29.
Cami McNany scored on a layup just six seconds into overtime, giving the Falcons their first lead since midway through the second quarter. They never allowed the Chargers to pull even in the extra period. OLSH's Haley Hamilton couldn't get a layup to fall at the buzzer.
The Chargers (22-5) had scored no less than 50 points in their previous five playoff games this season.
“Not making shots was part of it,” said OLSH coach Don Eckerle, “but A-C Valley did a good job. They clogged the middle on us.”
Both teams struggled on offense throughout the game. OLSH scored no more than eight points in any quarter. A-C Valley scored more than six points in just one period.
“I was taking too many 3-pointers early,” said Boocks. “After that, we started getting the ball into Kylee (Eaton) and she had some big baskets for us.”
Eaton scored all six of the Falcons' points in the third quarter, after which the Chargers led 22-16.
McNany, Boocks and Rachel Cullen combined for four field goals in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. That's when the Falcons experienced the lull that nearly ended their season.
“I was thinking the whole night, if we can just keep it close until the fourth quarter, we'd have a chance,” Sherman said.Defense was the biggest stalwart for A-C Valley, for even when the Falcons (21-4) couldn't score, OLSH was never able to pull away. This fact came back to bite the Chargers. Their lead stood at just 25-24 for over three and a half minutes of the fourth quarter.“We can muddy it up on defense as well as anybody,” said Sherman. “Our defense has done it all season.”Senior Ashley Norling scored 17 points for OLSH.Boocks said a collective belief laid the foundation for the upset.“We kept telling each other that we couldn't let the fact that they won the WPIAL get into our heads,” she said.A-C VALLEY 35Cami McNany 2 0-0 4, Rachel Cullen 2 1-2 5, Olivia Boocks 4 8-11 18, Kylee Eaton 4 0-7 8, Emily Wetzel 0 0-0 0, Andrea Meals 0 0-0 0. Totals: 12 9-20 35.OLSH 33Maddie Hoff 2 4-4 9, Ashley Norling 5 5-9 17, Haley Hamilton 1 2-3 4, Hannah Valenty 0 1-2 1, Emily Schuck 1 0-0 2, Kate Penn 0 0-0 0, Gracie Bradley 0 0-0 0. Totals: 9 12-18 33.A-C Valley 6 4 6 13 6 — 35 OLSH6 8 8 7 4 — 333-point goals: A-C Valley 2 (Boocks 2); OLSH 3 (Norling 2, Hoff).Friday: A-C Valley vs. Everett, PIAA Class 2A Quarterfinal, time and site TBD
