Tyrone’s twenty-year district championship drought in boys basketball will have to wait at least another year.
The Golden Eagle’s season came to a disappointing close at home against Penn Cambria in the District VI quarterfinals on Friday, February 21.
“When I came over (from the girls team), I wanted to see if we could get to that district championship game and that state tournament,” Tyrone Head Coach Luke Rhoades told the Altoona Mirror after the game. “We came up short again. It’s a tough one because it’s not the way I wanted the season to end.”
The 18-4 Golden Eagles entered the game as slight favorites, playing at home and having defeated Penn Cambria by over 30 points in the Tyrone Rotary Holiday Tournament in December.
However, the Penn Cambria team that showed up at the Tyrone High School gym on Friday didn’t look at all like the one that Tyrone faced December.
“They went deep in football and only had two weeks of practice (by the end of December),” Rhoades said. “They’ve had a great end of the season. You can tell that they worked their tail off and they outplayed us in every aspect.”
The surging Panthers caught Tyrone off guard by playing efficient defense and making shot after shot for the 67-50 win.
Defensively Penn Cambria was flying around the court, paying tough man-to-man, rebounding, and hitting tough shots.
By contrast, the Golden Eagles started slow and Penn Cambria took advantage with an early 8-point lead.
Tyrone never recovered and allowed the Panthers to inch out bigger leads by the end of each quarter until the game became unwinnable for the Golden Eagles near the end of the fourth quarter.
By the end of the first half, Tyrone was already down 13 points and was starstruck by the Panther’s performance.
The Golden Eagles came out motivated in the second half but were immediately shut down when Blake Lily drilled a three to open up the half.
The stars of Tyrone’s team never caught fire or showed their potential.
Senior Sam Crilly led the Golden Eagles with 14 points with 6 of those points coming from foul shots.
Senior Andrew Escala followed behind with 11, and Eli Woomer with 10.
To win Tyrone needed to grab rebounds and find open shooters, but they weren’t able to capitalize on second-chance opportunities and turnovers.
However, the Panthers did, grabbing 29 rebounds and 15 assists.
Tyrone had a stellar regular season but once again was not able to capitalize in the postseason.
“You’re going to get hit with adversity throughout your whole life,” Rhoades said. “(Friday) when we got hit with adversity, we didn’t respond. Hopefully they learn from this and in life if they get hit with adversity they’re going to respond and do well.”
Tyrone’s season is over, and Penn Cambria will face Bishop Guilfoyle in the district semifinals.
BOX SCORE
PENN CAMBRIA (67): Lilly 5 4-6 16, Gibbons 5 2-2 13, Rabish 2 5-6 9, Harrold 6 0-0 15, Hite 2 0-0 4, Srittmatter 1 0-0 2, Jones 0 0-0 0, Semelsberger 3 0-0 8, Farabaugh 0 0-0 0. Totals: 24 11-14 67.
TYRONE (50): Escala 4 2-5 11, Walk 0 1-2 1, Woomer 1 7-8 10, Lehner 3 0-0 6, Crilly 14, Adams 0 0-0 0, Hamer 0 0-0 0, Novak 0 1-2 1. Totals: 15 18-26 50.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Penn Cambria 19 14 21 13 – 67
Tyrone 13 7 16 14 – 50
3-point field goals: Penn Cambria 8 (Lilly 2, Gibbons, Harrold 3, Semelsberger 2), Tyrone 2 (Escala, Woomer)
Records: Penn Cambria (14-8), Tyrone (18-5).
