Upper St. Clair girls hold off Hempfield rally

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, January 3, 2019 | 10:24 PM

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First-year girls basketball coach Tom Brush still is looking for his first section win at Hempfield. He almost achieved that goal Thursday night, but instead he will have to use a near-miss against Upper St. Clair as a learning experience for future Section 2-6A games.

It’s a loss, but also a step in the right direction.

Hempfield cut a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to two inside the closing 30 seconds but could not overtake the visiting Panthers in a 48-45 loss that ended the Spartans’ three-game winning streak.

That his team remained competitive until the final seconds was a positive for Brush.

“You hate to lose,” Brush said. “But I am proud of the way they battled, coming back like that. We knew how tough this section would be, and games like this show us how hard we have to play. We’ll take the momentum into our next practice.”

Hempfield (5-4, 0-4) went on an 8-0 run with just under a minute to play to trim a 46-36 Panthers’ lead to 46-44. Junior Sarah Liberatore, who scored a game-high 16 points, converted a 3-point play and made another layup with 22.9 seconds to go.

But Hempfield, down 47-45, turned the ball over and was forced to foul with 5.1 seconds left.

Sophomore Sarah Rocco came up with the steal, made a free throw, and then blocked Hempfield’s last-second 3-point try to seal the win for Upper St. Clair (5-4, 2-2), which had lost three of its last four games.

“(Hempfield) did a nice job of coming back on us,” Upper St. Clair coach Pete Serio said. “We were able to hang on and didn’t give up a basket late. Rocco’s job is to play defense for us and that’s what she did tonight.”

Hempfield went back and forth with the Panthers in the first half. Three-pointers from Liberatore and junior Riley Sullebarger and sophomore Emma Hoffner, who finished with 11 points, staked the Spartans to a 13-11 lead after one quarter.

Upper St. Clair rallied to tie it 18-18 on a pair of free throws by 6-foot-2 senior forward Sarah Price, who had a team-high 15 points, then went ahead on a layup by senior Allison Dellicarri and a 3 from sophomore guard Emily Rocco.

Price gave the Spartans trouble with her size, not only as a scorer and rebounder around the basket, but also as a passer. When she gets the ball up high, not many defenders can get to it.

“One of the more fun things I like to do is assisting, not scoring,” said Price, who had nine points in the first half. “Our defense was a big key tonight. We have been working on that in practice. When we miss a shot, we can’t get down.”

Sullebarger’s layup off a turnover cut the Panthers’ advantage to 23-21 at the break.

Hoffner gave Hempfield a 34-32 lead after three quarters with a drive-and-score off a steal.

Hempfield’s last lead came at 36-35 after a score by Liberatore. A key 11-0 surge by the Panthers that saw Price put back a miss and score another hoop inside, made it 46-36.

“Sarah does a lot for us,” Serio said. “And she takes a beating in there.”

Senior Cassandra Kartsonas hit a 3 during the run.

“It comes down to the little details,” Brush said. “We have to fine-tune some things; the 50-50 balls, things like that. That is the difference for us.”

Senior Lindsay Meyer fouled out with eight points for the Panthers.

Sullebarger scored seven for Hempfield.

Bill Beckner is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Bill at bbeckner@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BillBeckner.

Tags: Hempfield, Upper St. Clair