Montrose playoff run ended by Mid Valley

Montrose Area’s girls’ basketball team fell in the District II Class AA third place game to Mid Valley, 48-39, on Friday night at Scranton High School to see the team’s PIAA state playoff hopes dashed.

Mid Valley got out to an early lead over the Meteors as the Spartans outscored Montrose 13-9 in the first and 14-8 in the second to lead 27-17 at halftime.

“We just had way too many costly turnovers and we gave them too many second chance opportunities,” Montrose coach Al Smith said. “Game maturity it comes down to, and we had costly turnovers at costly times.”

In the third quarter, Mid Valley continued to pace Montrose with a 10-5 run to give the Spartans a 37-22 lead going into the fourth.

Dallas Ely sparked a rally, scoring seven of her 22 points in a 9-0 run by Montrose that cut Mid Valley’s lead to 39-31 with 3:07 left, but two free throws each from a pair of Mid Valley players sealed the win for the Spartans.

Amelia DiPhillips chipped in seven points for Montrose while Sara Krupinski and Katie Stranburg each had three.

On Tuesday night, Montrose lost its semifinal game at Pittston Area to Lake-Lehman, 51-44.

At Pittston, despite the Lady Meteors scoring 14 unanswered points in the beginning of the fourth quarter, Lake-Lehman answered the Montrose comeback with six straight points to take the win in the District II Class AA semifinals.

Lake-Lehman’s Selena Adamshick scored 17 of her game-high 30 points in the first half, including all 11 of Lake-Lehman’s points in the second quarter.

“I felt like someone was on my shoulders the whole time,” said Adamshick, who also had 16 rebounds and three blocks.

She’s not exaggerating, as Montrose collapsed on her every time she got the ball in the paint.

“We tried to double her but they were getting the ball to her and she got into a rhythm,” Smith said. “Then we went to zone and their other players started hitting shots from the outside.”

The Black Knights exploded offensively in the second half to hold a 12-point cushion at the end of the third quarter.

Adamshick’s basket underneath to start the fourth gave Lehman its biggest lead at 14 points, but it was short-lived.

Ely ignited the rally as she scored back-to-back 3-pointers and she dished off to Krupinski for two more after a steal. Sam Abbott and DiPhillips combined for five more points in the run.

Ely finished with a team-high 19 points, including nine on 3-pointers in the opening quarter. From there, Montrose’s shooting went flat as it went 1 for 8 in the second quarter and 2 for 15 in the third.

“We weren’t shooting the ball well at all,” Smith said. “I think defensively as a team we started to put pressure on them and got easy looks but we missed too many shots before that.”

Times-Shamrock writers Jill Snowdon and Marty Myers contributed to this report.