Surprise! Lee Supply will play for Grebb girls’ title

July 31--Everyone expecting a No. 1 vs. No. 2 championship game in the Grebb League Girls' Division championship game got some bad news Wednesday night.

Neither will be playing in the game Thursday.

Third-seeded and defending champion Bitonti's Barristers topped No.2 Lagerheads right before No. 4-seed Lee Supply had the upset of the season, knocking off regular-season champion and previously undefeated Belle Vernon Dairy Queen.

Lee Supply beat Tommy Thomas State Farm, 68-45, in the opening game of the tripleheader Wednesday to advance to meet Dairy Queen in the nightcap.

Bitonti's and Lee Supply will meet in the opener of a Grebb League championship doubleheader at 7:30 p.m. The boys' championship game between Farmers Insurance and Union Cleaners will follow at 9 p.m.

Lee Supply 52,B.V. Dairy Queen 49

After Kaitlyn Slagus hit a nifty left-handed layup with 12 minutes to go to put Dairy Queen up, 38-24, it looked as if coach Bill Greco had Lee Supply right where he wanted them.

He substituted his top line, which played right into the hands of Lee Supply.

The league's expansion team went on to outscore the regular season champs 14-2 over the next six minutes, including a 12-0 run fueled by hot shot Anna Bartman.

Bartman, who scored a game-high 23 points -- 11 points during that six minutes -- including a runner in the lane that completed the comeback, to give her team a 42-40 lead over a shocked Dairy Queen team.

Dairy Queen'sBrittany Stawovy answered with a jumper to tie it up quickly, but the momentum remained in Lee Supply's favor.

California Area's Brooke Clements hit a reverse layup, driving past Slagus in the lane to give Lee Supply a 46-44 lead. That was followed by a Dairy Queen turnover, one of 10 in the second half. Lee Supply's Alexandria Seto scored after an offensive rebound to push her team's lead to 48-44 with 2:30 remaining.

As the teams exchanged turnovers and missed shots, Dairy Queen got the ball back with a minute to play and pulled to within one after a Stawovy 3-pointer made the score 48-47.

Dairy Queen resorted to fouling to stop the clock, but it fouled the wrong girl.

BVA freshman Keira Boff calmly stepped to the line and sank two free throws to make the lead 50-47 with 49 seconds to go.

After a quick Slagus basket, Dairy Queen fouled Boff again down by a point, 50-49. And again, she made a pair of free throws.

"It's funny because Keira came to me and said that she had been struggling so she was working all afternoon," Lee Supply coach Phil Stewart said. "She told me that she got her foul shots down, though. And she did."

Stawovy drove baseline with 10 seconds to go and put up a shot, but it bounced off the rim and Seto raced out of the lane with the rebound to finish off the upset.

"I've been coaching a long time, for more than 40 years probably," Stewart said. "I honestly can say that I've never been more proud of a team than I am of this team.

"We only had six girls. And to play two games and win them both the way we did. I'm so proud of them. Once you get to the playoffs, you never know."

Bitonti's Barristers 48,Lagerheads 37

Bitonti's coach Ray Huffman had a plan to handle Lagerheads.

Make someone other than the league's leading-scorer Maris Seto beat them.

Seto had a double-double -- 16 points and 15 rebounds -- but Huffman's plan worked. No other Lagerheads player reached double digits; the closest was Madison Zimcoski's eight points.

"But what did the rest of the team do?" Huffman said. "Our plan was to chase her and make her work. She's a great player. We played good help-man defense on her and bumped her around a little bit.

"We wanted them to shoot from outside because they're so athletic down under the basket."

Sierra Kotchman led the way for Bitonti's, scoring 13 of her team-high 18 points in the first half. Her hot shooting combined with the penetrating ability of point guard Kaitlin Thomas, a senior at BVA, were too much for the Lagerheads defense.

Thomas scored 15 points, 10 in the second half. She was particularly effective when the Bitonti's offense spread the floor. Using screens to find a mismatch, Thomas used a crossover dribble to blow by defenders.

With the game tied at 17-17 late in the first half, went on a 9-0 run to build a 26-17 lead. Lagerheads' Kiki McCrae hit two free throws to stop the run with less than 10 seconds remaining, but her team committed a mental mistake, fouling the Barristers' Caitlyn Trombley as she attempted a 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds remaining to give the defending champions a 28-19 halftime lead.

The Bitonti's defense knew it was going to get a heavy dose of Seto as Lagerheads tried to get back into the game in the second half, and it did cut the lead to 38-32 with just over five minutes remaining, but Bitonti's withstood the push.

Thomas and Kotchman hit consecutive layups and BVA's Meaghan Murphy grabbed an offensive rebound and layed it in to push the lead back up to 12 with three minutes to go.

Lagerheads fought back to make the score 44-37 with a quick 5-0 run, but Trombley and Kotchman, a sophomore at Trinity, combined to hit 4 of 6 free throws to seal their team's trip back to the final game.

Both coaches said their teams will be prepared to play come Thursday.Huffman likes the matchup for his team, who split their meetings this season.

"It's surprising, for sure," Huffman said. "I was planning to prepare for the size (of BV Dairy Queen) to be honest.

"I'll come up with a game plan, though. We were able to play a half-court offense tonight and the girls play hard. We'll be ready to go tomorrow night."

Stewart said it will be status quo for Lee Supply.

"These girls never even had a practice," he said of his young team. "I have two seniors in (Bartman and Clements) and they've been great leaders.

"The greatest thing is that they all like each other, they've come together as a team and they play together. We like to spread the floor and kick it out and shoot. It's simple, old-fashioned, basic basketball. That's exactly how I expect we'll play tomorrow.

"We'll see what happens."

Jeremy Sellew is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at [email protected] or 724-684-2667.

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