WEST SUNBURY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — She’s only a sophomore. First year as a starter. She’s supposed to be green. She’s supposed to shrink under this kind of pressure.
But Addy Bond’s blood doesn’t run cold. Confidence that belies her youth courses through her veins.
On Wednesday night in a hostile environment at Moniteau in a big game, both in the Keystone Shorway Athletic Conference standings and in Redbank Valley’s collective psyche after a recent two-game skid, the diminutive Bond played at her largest.
(Pictured above, Addy Bond)
She scored 22 points after halftime for the Bulldog girls basketball team. With the score tied at 36-36 and the seconds counting down to zero on the fourth-quarter clock, Bond dribbled through traffic and put up an off-balance shot just before she reached half court that rattled around the rim and fell through the net for a dramatic 39-36 victory.
Bond threw her arms in the air. Teammates mobbed her. It was a coronation of sorts. A coming-out party for the guard who played out of her mind in one of the most pivotal games of the year.
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“She never lacks in confidence,” said Redbank Valley coach Chris Edmonds. “That was a breakout game for her.”
Bond had taken those kind of desperation shots at the buzzer before; they had rarely gone in.
She took one at the end of the third quarter and it did fall through with a swish. That emboldened her to take another at the end of the fourth quarter, even though she was more hoping for contact than a game-winning prayer to be answered.
“Honesly, I was just hoping that I’d run into somebody and get the foul,” Bond said, smiling and letting out a laugh. “When that shot went in, it was so amazing. It was probably one of the biggest shots I’ll take in my career.”
Nothing in the first half foretold of the zone Bond was about to enter.
Redbank Valley — and Moniteau, for that matter — struggled offensively with shots clanking off rims and caroming on the backboards.
Bond had just two points in the first half as Moniteau took an 18-12 lead into the break in a slog of a game that featured stellar defense.
But Bond scored the first six points of the third quarter to draw the Bulldogs even at 18-18. Her twisting 3-pointer capped her 13-point third and sent Redbank into the fourth with a 28-22 lead.
She finished with a game-high 24 points.
All of that happened with Redbank Valley’s unquestioned star, 1,000-point scorer Mylee Harmon, relegated to the bench in serious foul trouble.
Harmon picked up three fouls in the first half and then was hit with her fourth early in the third.
She returned midway through the fourth, but her stay on the court was short-lived. Harmon picked up her fifth foul just a minute later, fouling out with just four points.
That normally would have been a serious boon for Moniteau’s chances.
Bond had other ideas.
“She played a great game — I mean, we couldn’t stop her,” said Moniteau coach Dee Arblaster with a shrug. “Allie (Pry) played her butt off on her. Abbey (Jewart) tried. We just couldn’t stop her. She took over.”
Still, Moniteau had chances.
The Warriors managed to tie the game twice, first on a 3-pointer by Jewart that made it 34-34, with 25 seconds remaining.
Bond, though, cooly drove the lane and put up a running floater to give Redbank the lead back at 36-34 with 13 seconds on the clock.
Catherine Kelly drove the lane for a layup with a little over five seconds left to knot the game at 36-36, setting up Bond’s heroics.
“I just tried to take control,” Bond said. “We were pretty flat in the first half and we knew the first three minutes of the third were going to be very important. I just tried to keep that going and get us in the position to win the game.”
Boy, did she.
“She came with a lot of energy,” Edmonds said of Bond. “She stepped up as a leader and controlled the game and tempo. She made some pretty big shots when she needed to.”
Kira Bonanno also was strong for Redbank Valley. She was handed the difficult task of battling in the paint with Moniteau senior Kendall Sankey — one of the best posts in the District 9 — all night and held her own, finishing with eight points and 14 rebounds.
Sankey had her typical dominant night, however, scoring 11 points to go with 20 boards.
Kelly finished with 12 and Allie Pry added 10 for the Warriors.
Neither team shot well, but Moniteau had its worst night from the floor and the line all season.
The Warriors were 1 of 8 on free throws in the fourth quarter, which certainly came back to haunt them dearly.
“We talk about that all the time,” Arblaster said. “You don’t win games shooting like we did. It’s disappointing to lose like that, especially when we had the worst shooting performance by far of the year. We don’t typically shoot that bad. We had (Harmon) on the bench and (Bond) just took over. We didn’t have an answer.”
Two streaks were ended with this outcome.
Moniteau (10-2, 4-1) had won eight in a row. Redbank Valley (8-2, 4-0) had dropped two straight.
For the Bulldogs, staying unblemished in the KSAC and snapping that mini-skid — something that hasn’t happened often in the last five years — was paramount.
“We’ve had games like this before with Moniteau. We’ve had some great games like this before,” Edmonds said. “We were looking forward to this one and it’s good to get this one. It’s a good way to start the second half of the season.”
Redbank Valley, Keystone, and Union/A-C Valley sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Heeter Lumber.
