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From Downtown: Brockway’s Buttery Shows Off Range, Posts Triple-Double in Win Over Moniteau

WEST SUNBURY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Selena Buttery’s range is seemingly unlimited.

The 5-foot-10 senior guard/forward on the Brockway girls basketball team showed that off Monday night at Moniteau.

(Above, Selena Buttery, left, and Danielle Wood combined to score 31 points for Brockway in a win over Moniteau Monday night)

Buttery made two deep 3-pointers from the edge of the Warrior headdress logo at center court to kickstart a 16-2 Rover run in the four-plus minutes of the game to help Brockway cruise to a 48-34 road win.

“We’ve been working on that pretty hard,” Buttery said, smiling. “Coach sometimes gets mad when I shoot from so far out there when I don’t need to, but we’ve been working on range at practice. People aren’t expecting me to shoot that far out.”

Moniteau wasn’t. After Buttery made her first two, Moniteau had to adjust.

“I’m not going to defend anybody at the volleyball spike line,” said Moniteau coach Dee Arblaster. “That’s deep — until they make a couple, then we come out.”

Buttery’s range opened things up for others, namely 5-3 point guard Danielle Wood, who scored a game-high 17 points.

Wood came into the night averaging 21.8 points per game.

Quickness is Wood’s calling card and she slashed to the hoop with ease at times. She also hit a couple of early 3-pointers.

“She’s a nightmare for most teams because of her speed and ability to get in there,” said Steve Buttery, who was filling in as the Brockway head coach Monday night because Dick Esposito was at home resting with the flu.

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(Brockway coach Steve Buttery, center, was filling in as head coach for Dick Esposito, who was out wit the flu)

Brockway likes to play an up-tempo game and Moniteau couldn’t slow the Rovers or Wood down enough.

“We like to just go and go,” Wood said. “The fast pace is really how we like to play.”

Buttery was also a force on defense and had a memorable night. She had a triple-double — the fourth of her career — with 14 points, 11 rebounds and 10 (yes, 10) blocked shots.

“Selena changes the way defenses have to play us a lot,” Coach Buttery said. “They have to defend a lot more of the court and that’s really a big part of our game. We try to get 3s to pull that defense out so we can open up the middle for Danielle.”

Brockway’s 1-2 punch had the Rovers humming early.

Moniteau made a push toward the end of the first half, cutting the deficit to 20-13 with 3:33 remaining in the second quarter, but Brockway closed on an 8-1 run to take a 28-14 advantage into the halftime locker room.

The lead swelled to as many as 26 points in the second half before Moniteau closed out the game with another push. The Warriors couldn’t get as close as 14, though.

“I play with four sophomores and a freshman is the first one off the bench,” Arblaster said. “So we’re a young team that has very little experience.”

Two of those sophomores, Davina Pry and Catherine Kelly, combined to score 22 points. Pry had 12 and Kelly 10 for Moniteau.

Pry was grinding in the post all game.

“She’s getting there,” Arblaster said. “She needs to be a little stronger and have a little more confidence in what she can do because she can do it.”

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Kelly struggled from the field until getting hot in the fourth quarter. As a whole, the Warriors shot poorly, especially in the third quarter when they began the frame 0 of 11.

“I don’t know what it is,” Arblaster said. “We try to get them in the JV game a little to get them some confidence shooting. We need to get it figured out.”

Brockway has had to play iron-woman basketball so far this season because the bench is thinner than thin.

It took a huge hit when Raegan Gelnette couldn’t go with a knee injury.

Gelnette is the first one off the bench and the only post player who can play the post other than Selena Buttery, who said the starting five know they are in for a 32-minute grind each night and have to play smart.

“We have to play straight-up defense, no reaching when it’s unnecessary,” Selena said. “I did that once tonight and got called. Stupid. But we were pretty good at playing straight up.”

Brockway’s defense was stout despite having to play careful.

“We really preach defense,” Wood said. “I thought this was our best performance this year. It’s great to have that.”

Coach Buttery was happy to leave Moniteau and make the long trek home with a win given the circumstances.

“It was huge for us to get off the bus and come in and blitz their team and get that early lead,” he said. “That’s what we talked about to the locker room before we came out because it was a long bus ride here and sometimes the girls need to get their legs under them. It was a big start and that was important for us.

“We were literally five deep,” he added. “We had five and we knew we had to run with that. They did a great job.”