Northern Lehigh advances to 2A semis
The Northern Lehigh girls basketball team is enjoying its best season in a dozen years under second-year coach Chris Heery.
And the Bulldogs are not ready to bid adieu just yet to this season and they proved that by winning one of the wildest District 11 contests of all time.
Dekota Barthold’s rebound basket with six seconds left in overtime propelled fourth-seeded Northern Lehigh to an 85-84 victory over No. 5 Panther Valley in a Class 2A quarterfinal game at Whitehall High School on Saturday afternoon.
How crazy was it?
Well, the teams combined for over 133 shots from the field in the game including 45 from 3-point range. That’s an amazing amount of shots for a girls game in this era. This was, however, a truly run-and-gun masterpiece. The teams combined for two free throw attempts in the first half, both by the Panthers (12-11).
The Bulldogs took 43 free throws in the second half, making 23 of them, and there were 60 free throws attempted by both teams in the game. Northern Lehigh took 23 free throws in the fourth quarter and made only eight which helped Panther Valley rally from a 12-point deficit with four minutes left in regulation to tie the score 72-72 on Sera Robin’s driving layup with 3.6 seconds left.
“And we are a really good free throw shooting team,” Heery said. “When you miss those first couple and the game is on the line…we have a lot of young players. They start thinking a little too much and when that happens you don’t know what to do for them.”
Panther junior Maddison Maynard, who plays every position on the floor and already has 1,102 career-points, scored a career-high 37 points on 9-for27 shooting from the field while going 10-for-10 from the line. She would have most likely scored at least 40 points if she didn’t foul out with 2:30 left in overtime.
Maynard scored 34 points when Northern Lehigh beat the Panthers, 69-55, in the season opener. Bulldog junior Aubrey Pollard, who played for Northern Lehigh as a freshman, Executive Education as a sophomore and returned this season, finished with a career-high 31 points on 9-for-24 shooting from the field while going 10-for-15 from the line and also had 15 rebounds. Pollard, unofficially, has 805 points in her scholastic career.
“This was a really big game for us to pull out and advance to the next round,” Pollard said. “I know they’ve gotten better since we played them and so have we.
We’ve stuck together all season and have improved as a team instead of playing as individuals.”
Panther Valley scored 26 points in the fourth quarter and 46 total in the third and fourth quarters to eventually get the game tied after regulation. Dekota Barthold, a sophomore, finished with a career-high 19 points for Northern Lehigh and her sister Katelyn contributed a career-high 18 while forward Cadence Peters, one of just two seniors on the team, scored 12 points and pulled down 14 rebounds.
Robin finished with 24 points for the Panthers thanks in part to connecting on six 3-pointers.
“It was an incredible game,” Heery said. “It was a shame either one of these teams had come away with a loss today. We both played as hard as we could play. The first game Maddie had some foul trouble for them. That’s one of the reasons we won by 14 points. We knew we were going to have some trouble with her today. She’s one of the best players I’ve seen.”
Northern Lehigh took it biggest lead of the first half when Katelyn Barthold hit a 3-pointer with 57 seconds left a 37-26 halftime lead. Maynard made five of her six shots while Panther Valley shot 9-for-13 in the third quarter as its closed to with six at one point but still trailed 55-46 after three quarters. A 3-pointer by Robin and Maynard dribbled the length of the court to tie the score at 67-67 with 1:07 left in regulation.
Another 3-pointer from Robin gave the Panthers their first lead since the first quarter, 70-67, before a Dekota Barthold 3-pointer and two foul shots gave Northern Lehigh a 72-70 lead. A rebound basket by Katelyn Barthold and six free throws helped Nolehi to a 80-74 advantage to start overtime but Panther Valley wasn’t going anywhere as Robin scored 10 straight points for the Panthers including a driving layup with 15 second left in overtime gave her team a 84-83 lead to set up Dekota Barthold’s heroics.
“I don’t want to lose, I don’t want to lose,” Dakota Barthold said of what she was thinking when she saw the rebound come her way with a chance to give her team the victory. “I want to make states. That would be a big achievement. I made the same kind of play against Moravian Academy to win a game this year. That was all running through my head.”
Next up for Northern Lehigh is a date with top-seeded Marian Catholic (23-2) in the semifinals on Wednesday at a time and site to be determined. Marian lost to North Schuylkill 56-52 in the Schuylkill League championship game. The Bulldogs are guaranteed two more games, so if they win the semifinal or consolation game they will be rewarded with their fifth PIAA tournament berth in school history and the first since going twice in a row in 2011 and 2012.
“Marian is going to be difficult for us,” Heery said. “But we’re putting up a lot of points right now.”