PENNSYLVANIA Grove City girls edge out Mercer

One bright spot for the Mustangs was their job on the boards.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MERCER, Pa. -- Grove City, shaking off a sluggish start, turned it up a notch in the second half for a 52-34 victory over neighboring Mercer in Mercer County Athletic Conference high school basketball action Thursday.
Grove City (6-1) got off to a quick start by scoring the first seven points, but for the remainder of the half it missed shots and made turnovers. A Mercer edge in rebounds (26-16) resulted in little or no offense at times for the Eagles.
"We really didn't get them to turn the ball over against our press, and we rely on that," said Grove City coach Roger Flynn. "We are a gambling, pressure type of team, and if we don't create turnovers on the one end, they are going to score on the other end."
Rebounds: One bright spot for the Mustangs was the job on the boards as they out-rebounded the taller Eagles 38-35 for the game.
"We have been getting killed on the boards and our last two or three practices have been doing a lot of rebound drills," said Mercer coach Gary Sansom. "We are just not big enough to stand in there and try to jump with people. If you don't block them out, you are in trouble and I thought we did a little better job on that tonight."
The rebounding edge by Mercer (3-5) didn't surprise Flynn.
"I was surprised that their edge was only three rebounds," said Flynn. "Early in the game, it had to be a very wide margin and there is no excuse for that. We have reasonable height and lot of scrappy players and to get out-rebounded like we did is totally inexcusable."
After hanging around for much of the first half, the Mustangs put together five straight points to begin the second half and take a 19-17 lead. But that is when the Eagles, behind their two tall people inside in Angela Burk and Chelsea Smith, went on an 18-4 run to lead 35-23 at the final turn.
"We went from two down to 12 up, and that is a nice spurt," said Flynn. "Angela was responsible for a lot of that. We have an offense where we set her on the foul line, and she is one of the best pure shooters on the team."
Smith, who was held scoreless in the first half, finished with 13 points as one of three players to hit double figures for the Eagles.
Top scorers: Leading the Grove City scoring was Amber McFeely with five 3's and 17 points. Smith and McFeely were joined in doubles by Angela Burk with 10. For Mercer, Shelah Bolyard led the attack with 13 points, Jessica Speer a point behind Bolyard with 12.
"They are an awesome team, and if they get things wound up, look out," said Sansom about the Grove City run. "I think our zone sort of confused them. They didn't hit right off the bat, and that helped keep us in the game."
Despite the loss, Sansom said that playing in games like this will help his team become better.
"Maybe games like this will help us down the road," said Sansom. "We played Grove City and Hickory each twice and Sharon once already, so we have gone against some good teams in the early going."