DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

guard would dribble in and out of trouble to add eight assists and eight rebounds to her totals.

“The most important thing to us was defense,” Christian said, who gave a shout-out to teammate Gianna Lucchesi. “We were getting a lot of deflections and hustling to rebounds and loose balls.”

To mention the Red Raiders’ defense, you had to talk about Lucchesi, who hounded Redbirds’ leading scorer Ryan Weise all afternoon. Weise still led Allentown (21-3) with 12 points, but neither she nor backcourt mate Lauren Coiante scored in the final nine minutes as Pennington’s lead was trimmed to 40-33.

“Every time we seemed to have momentum, things would not go our way,” A’town head coach Linda Weise said. “We wanted to rebound and run, but we didn’t do that as well as we like to.”

“Defense wins games, so I felt like it was my mission to be put on her,” said Lucchesi, whose mother went to McCorristin High with Mrs. (Linda) Weise. “I’m tired, but it’s worth it.”

Lucchesi, a 5-10 junior forward, added 11 points and a bump on her forehead when she and Redbirds senior forward Marin Hartshorn lunged for a loose ball and flied into the table and benches near midcourt with six minutes left in the third quarter. Before Lucchesi returned to the court, Christian hit her third 3-point field goal of the game to give Pennington a 31-18 lead.

“Diamond’s such a good player,” Lucchesi said. “To have her and Carly together in the backcourt is unreal.”

“Give them credit. They have lots of weapons,” said Linda Weise, who had the Red Raiders well scouted. “I thought we did a decent job on Rice (nine points) and Leah Johnson (five points), but Diamond stepped up and put them on her back.”

The Red Raiders also got seven points and 18 rebounds from senior forward Ayanna Johnson to add to the Redbirds’ frustration on the boards. The nine points Coiante scored and eight apiece by Katie White and Maddie McCrea were the next best A’town got behind Weise.

AJohnson 3-1-7, Rice 3-2-9, LJohnson 2-1-5, Lucchesi 3-3-11, Christian 7-7-24, Justus 0-0-0.

18-14-56.

Totals —

Weise 3-6-12, Borkowski 1-0-2, KWhite 3-2-8, Hartshorn 1-1-4, Coiante 3-3-9, McCrea 4-0-8.

15-12-43.

Totals — Penningtn(22-2) 11 Allentown(21-3) 8 3-point goals — 15 6 14 17 16 — 10 — 56 43

Rice, Lucchesi 2, Christian 3 (P), Hartshorn (A).

KYLE FRANKO — TRENTONIAN PHOTO Pennington’s Diamond Christian (1) protects the ball from the defense of Allentown’s Katie White (50) as Pennington teammate Leah Johnson (34) runs past during the semifinal MCT game at CURE Insurance Arena on Tuesday afternoon.

KYLE FRANKO — TRENTONIAN PHOTO Allentown’s Ryan Weise, left, and Pennington’s Ayanna Johnson, right, battle for control of the ball during the semifinal MCT game at CURE Insurance Arena on Tuesday afternoon.