KARNS CITY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — The shots weren’t falling. The turnovers and fouls were piling up.
Still, the Karns City girls basketball team held a 35-34 lead after three quarters.
But it’s the first game of the season and first games are wrought with pitfalls. The Gremlins experienced a few in the fourth quarter against visiting Wilmington in a 48-40 loss in their tip-off tournament Friday night.
“It’s kind of similar to what plagued us last year — struggling to put the ball in the hoop and turning it over,” said Karns City coach Steve Andreassi. “We had critical turnovers down the stretch. When we did get the lead, we turned it over three times in a row.”
Emma Johns hit a 3-pointer to give Karns City its first lead of the game at 35-34 with 1:35 remaining in the third quarter.
The shot culminated a long and arduous comeback. Wilmington jumped out to a 7-1 lead and Karns City spent the rest of the next two-plus quarters trying to chip away.
The Greyhounds led by as many as nine late in the second quarter. The Gremlins got as close as two points twice in the third before Johns gave them the lead.
It was brief.
Wilmington scored the first five points of the fourth quarter.
Karns City got as close as 41-40 with three minutes remaining in the game, but the Greyhounds scored the next seven points to win the opener.
“We had some good dribble penetration, and then bad passes,” Andreassi said. “It felt like, at times, there were girls who wanted to just get rid of the ball and let somebody else do it. So yeah, there’s still some maturity issues, but at the same time, you know, that guard was pretty good.”
That guard was Wilmington’s Lia Krarup, who scored a game-high 21 points. She was dangerous from the perimeter with two 3-pointers and was also adept at getting to the rim. Her scoop layup with her off-hand in the fourth quarter gave Wilmington a two-possession lead late and sent the Greyhounds on the way to the victory.
John’s finished with 13 points for Karns City. Freshman point guard Camryn Booher came off the bench to add 11 points for the Gremlins.
“That shows you how talented she is,” Andreassi said. “She can do anything.”
Booher showed flashes of the kind of player she can be going forward. She gave Karns City a spark with her ball-handling and dribble penetration.
“We have a lot of potential with the freshmen,” Andreassi said. “A game of this this nature, it’s hard to throw everybody in the mix. I did get two other freshmen in the game. But, you know, we’ve been talking about this all along here. We have depth. That’s what’s going to hopefully carry us is depth. We can sub in some younger people.”
Karns City will host A-C Valley at 3 p.m. Saturday.
DuBois Central Catholic 47, A-C Valley 12 — Faith Jacob scored 24 points in the victory in the first game of the Karns City girls tip-off tournament.
Baylee Blauser, Keira McKay and Brianna Schmidt each scored four points for A-C Valley.
DuBois Central Catholic will play Wilmington at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
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