Minner, Hendricks lead Slaters
Bangor opens lead early and keep Lions at bay for the victory.
Still stinging from a tough loss to league foe Northwestern Lehigh, the Bangor girls basketball team took its frustrations out on Moravian Academy on Saturday afternoon in a mustwin situation in the first week of January.
Juniors Madeline Minner and Jordan Hendricks led a balanced attack offensively with 13 and 12 points respectively to lead the Slaters to a 62-51 victory over the Lions in a Colonial League East Division game at Bill Pensyl gymnasium.
Emily Labar added 11 points and Morgan Karasek contributed 10 as Bangor (5-3 overall, 4-3 league) began the game making nine of its first 14 field goals attempts to lead 23-10 after a quarter.
“We were shooting the ball well, getting steals and running up and down the court pretty well,” Bangor coach Bill Bisci said after collecting the 296th career victory in his 20-season career. “That set the tone and they were getting a little tired. They don’t have the bench that we do.”
“This was a big game for us,” said Hendricks, who scored seven points in the opening quarter. “We put ourselves in a little hole early in the season and now every game is big. We had it in our mindset during our warmups that we needed to beat this team.”
Bangor is seeking its 12th league playoff berth in the last 13 years, the last seven under Bisci.
“Don’t print this but we should have won against Northwestern,” Bisci said. “We played really well. The thing is we’ve put ourselves into the position where every game is a playoff game and we’ve only played eight games. Moravian Academy was ahead of us and we’re in eighth place in the Colonial League.”
Mya Ettle, a 6-foot-4 junior center who is headed to Richmond University, and junior guards Grace Moser and Quinn O’Connor helped get Moravian Academy (6-4, 5-3) right back in the game trailing 27-24 with 2:51 left to the half.
Bangor answered, regaining its 10-point lead before the half after back-to-back 3-pointers by sophomore Madison Kluska and Minner, a steal and layup by Labar and another basket by Minner. Labar picked up four of the Slaters 10 steals in the first half as the Lions committed 17 turnovers.
“Obviously we need to protect the ball better,” said Steve Turpening, Moravian Academy’s third coach in the last three seasons. “It’s a lot of stupid mistakes and then we give them easy baskets and its hard to recover. But give Bangor credit. They shot the ball well and they move the ball around.”
Labar, who collected six of her team-high eight rebounds in the third quarter, hit a put back and then turned a defensive rebound into a Minner fast break bucket to give Bangor a 49-32 lead with 2:20 left in the third.
“This is our turnaround point of the season,” Labar said. “This is where it’s time to give it to everybody that gave it to us. We have a pretty young team and this is the first time we’re experiencing this on the varsity level. Everything is a learning experience but we’re eager to learn.”
Moser, a transfer from Phillipsburg High School, led the Lions in scoring for the third straight game with 20 points. She’s averaging 22 points with 15 3-pointers in those three games.
Ettle and O’Connor added 11 points each for the Lions with Ettle also contributing seven rebounds, five blocked shots and four assists.
The Lions, in their fifth season in the Colonial League, put together their first four-game league winning streak this season. They qualified for the league playoffs in 2016-17 when they finished 18-6.
“We’re going to be okay,” Turpening said. “We battled to get back into it. Foul trouble hurt us. We’re not deep enough to overcome that. But I liked what I saw.”