WEST SUNBURY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Kendall Sankey swatted away a pass, gathered it and made a perfect pass to Catherine Kelly under the basket for a layup with less than a second remaining to force overtime, then the Moniteau girls basketball team won it in the extra frame, downing visiting West Shamokin, 48-42, on Saturday afternoon.
(Pictured above, Moniteau juniors Catherine Kelly, left, and Kendall Sankey)
“I was really stressed out that I was gonna turn the ball over, I’m not gonna lie,” Sankey said, chuckling. “Once I got the ball, I kind of saw the girl from West Shamokin coming up higher, so I figured if I kicked it to Cat that would be better than driving myself.”
It was a good choice.
It produced another dramatic win for the Warriors, who have now won 10 straight games.
Moniteau trailed 40-38 with 8.4 seconds left. West Shamokin had possession and inbounded the ball under the Warriors basket.
Sankey, 5-foot-8 and lanky, narrowly missed tipping the inbound pass, but got a hand on the next one with 6.7 seconds on the clock.
Meanwhile, Kelly sprinted to the hoop and Sankey, after corralling the basketball near the free throw line, zipped a pass to Kelly, who went up in one motion for the game-tying basket.
After that, Sankey said the attitude among her teammates was there was no one they were going to lose.
“We were a little down from being down in the game a little bit, so to come back and tie it on a play like that gave us a big boost,” Sankey said. “We didn’t get down on ourselves. We kept our heads up.”
Kelly finished with 23 points to lead Moniteau (16-3).
Kelly scored six of the Warriors’ eight points in overtime.
Davina Pry added nine points and Sankey scored six points and also had a huge game on the glass with 16 rebounds.
Lily Jordan led West Shamokin, which led 31-29 after three quarters, with 13 points.
With each win, Moniteau’s confidence is growing. The Warriors’ three losses have come by nine to DuBois, two to one-loss Redbank Valley and an OT setback against Mercer.
“We’ve been in some tough situations,” Sankey said. “A couple of our games we’ve shown that we can get out of it. We’re super determined and I think that’s shown.”
BOYS BASKETBALL
The Moniteau boys needed less dramatics to down West Shamokin.
Andrew Zepeda, David Dessicino and Dylan Bush each scored 12 points as the Warriors rolled to a 63-33 win.
Moniteau led 30-21 at the half, then broke things open in the third quarter, outscoring the Wolves 19-6.
David Martino also scored nine points and Colton Thomas chipped in eight for the Warriors (12-7).
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