What a difference just a few weeks can make.
On Jan. 17, the Bradford Lady Owls had just missed the opportunity of upsetting Punxsutawney in a 46-41 loss, and with that defeat fell to 5-9 on the season and to 0-4 in D9 League play.
It was also the Lady Owls’ third loss in four games, and it was fair to start wondering if Bradford had any shot of making the postseason.
But here we are a few weeks later, and those same Lady Owls now stand at 9-10 after winning four of their last five games since the loss to Punxsy.
The big difference since then? Bradford is starting to get more secondary scoring, particularly from Alanna Benson.
Prior to Benson’s emergence, the Lady Owls had to heavily lean on Erica Marshall and Hannah Lary, and could ill-afford for either of them to have an off night.
But in Bradford’s last five games, Benson has come on and either added important points to bolster Marshall and Lary, or in some cases, has picked up the slack when either of the two are having an off night.
In that aforementioned span, Benson has averaged 13.2 points per game, and has scored at least 15 points on three separate occasions, including a 20-point outburst against Coudersport in a 57-43 BAHS win on Jan. 25.
That’s certainly a welcome sight for head coach Bob Hannon, who is always quick to point out that Benson is just a freshman, and her best days in a Bradford uniform are likely ahead of her.
If Benson — along with Marshall (11.4 points per game) and Lary (18.4 points per game) — can keep the scoring pace up, the Lady Owls should be able to find their way into a postseason berth for the first time since 2016.
Bradford’s girls team has three games remaining, beginning with a Friday night bout against Brookville.
Tuesday night’s upset
Of course, any local basketball column would have to include a look back at the upset Cameron County sprung on Coudersport Tuesday night in Emporium.
Coudersport had ridden a 77-game North Tier League win streak — a run dating back to February 2015 — into its road contest at Cameron County, a team Coudy had beaten 71-38 earlier in the year.
But from the get-go, you could tell the rematch would be different from Round 1.
Cameron County managed to drag the typically high-octane Falcons into a defensive rockfight, a situation that certainly played well into the Red Raiders’ hands.
Coudersport shot just 1-for-11 from 3-point range on the night and 14-for-42 from the field overall, a far cry from the 10 triples the Falcons drilled on Cameron County in their first matchup.
Only one Coudy player, Dillon Keglovits, finished in double figures, and the Falcons also committed 15 turnovers. Put it all together, and you’ve got a season low in points scored (35) for Coudersport.
Meanwhile, on the other end, Cameron County struggled as well, going just 11-for-29 from the field. But a 16-for-20 night at the charity stripe, plus a 20-point game from Dino Brown, proved to be just enough for the Red Raiders.
Brown’s scoring was particularly important after halftime, as the senior guard scored all 13 Cameron County points in the third quarter, including the game’s first eight points out of the intermission as part of an 11-2 Red Raider run that put Cameron County ahead at that point, 26-23.
While the win was monumental for a Cameron County team that needed a little momentum, the North Tier League still figures to be Coudy’s.
The Falcons entered the evening with a two-game cushion over Cameron County, thanks in large part to Smethport’s 47-39 upset of the Red Raiders last Friday. And with league games against Austin and Otto-Eldred — teams Coudersport already beat handily on the road this year — the Falcons don’t seem to be in too much danger of losing out on their fifth straight NTL crown.
Elsewhere in D9
Conference races all around District 9 are beginning to wind down, or in some cases, heat up.
On the boys’ end, the Allegheny Mountain League’s divisions will be in familiar hands. Elk County Catholic has the AML North wrapped up with a perfect 10-0 record, while Ridgway has the South Division mathematically won with a 5-3 league record. Brockway is the next-best team in the AML South, but sits at 3-6 in league play, eliminating the Rovers from catching Ridgway by season’s end.
The boys’ D9 League is a two-team race between the aforementioned Crusaders and DuBois. The teams split their home-and-home series this year, and each has two games remaining in D9 League play.
That race could come down to the wire, though. DuBois still has to face Punxsutawney and Brookville, the latter of which the Beavers only beat by two earlier this year. Meanwhile, Elk Catholic still has to face crosstown rival St. Marys as well as Bradford. Local fans will recall that a flu-riddled Bradford team took the Crusaders to the wire before ECC pulled off a narrow 47-43 win at BAHS.
On the girls’ side, all of the local leagues are wrapped up. The AML belongs to the league’s two parochial schools, as Elk Catholic has captured the North and DuBois Central Catholic has won the South.
Meanwhile, Coudy’s girls won the NTL for the fifth consecutive year, and Punxsutawney has wrapped up the D9 League.
Each of those teams figures to be in the mix for a District title as the postseason begins in a couple weeks.
(Joel Whetzel, a Bradford Era sportswriter, can be reached at jwhetzel@bradfordera.com.)
