Rebuff On Resolution Ridge
Tri-Valley Remains Undefeated By Turning Back Chester For Regular Season Sweep; Sectional Berth Secured With Ninth Win And Fifth League Victory; Hustle, Rebounding and Relentless Defense Prove Effective Once Again As Tenbus’ Youngsters Continue Their Ascent
Tri-Valley 49, Chester 42
By RICHARD A. ROSS
Scenes from Tri-Valley's rebuff of Chester in a Division V rematch of the first one captured by T-V by a lone point. (Clockwise) Chester junior standout Mardelle Jean is shadowed ever so closely by T-V freshman Caroline Martin. Tri-Valley junior Mareena DiMilia scores over Chester's Kathryn Jankelunas. DiMilia had a game-high 14 points and 17 rebounds. Chester's Ashley George keeps a close watch on Tri-Valley's Sabrena Smith. Both scored 13 in the game. All of Smith's came in the second half. Tri-Valley cheerleader Ali Reynolds soars towards the rafters in a nifty basket catch display by the T-V cheerleaders. Tug of war: Tri-Valley's Erin Smith and Marcella Brosnan grapple for a loose ball. Chester's Amanda Schembri looks to pass in the early going and Tri-Valley's Katlynn Greffrath posts up for two of her eight points on the night.
GRAHAMSVILLE, NY—The Lady Bears went over the mountain and what do you think they saw? They saw another mountain to climb, this one named Mt. Chester: steep, rugged and daunting.
Welcome to the arduous climb wherein the goal is reach the upper stratosphere of Section Nine Class C.
Points in the paint: Tri-Valley's Sabrena Smith scored all of her 13 points in the second half as Chester's mission of preventing dribble penetration fell short as its bigs could not get up and down the floor as fast as the quick and the red (and white).
Out of the foothills of the early season and now onto the treacherous mid-level ridges of league encounters, the Lady Bears put one foot in front of the other, assisted each other when pitfalls loomed and downed Chester 49-42, a score that does not reflect Tri-Valley’s dominance as they continue their ascent with one goal in mind: to reach the title game peak and take on the final challenger.
As their warm up shirts inform…”We’re not defending the Championship…We’re pursuing another.”
With their feisty win over Chester, a team that has played them closer than any other team to date, the Lady Bears swept aside a league contender bent on coming in and forcing them to take a misstep. The enchanting Lady Bears foiled Chester’s mission of getting even for a one-point defeat down in Hambletonian Country and moving within one game of Tri-Valley on the Division V ladder.
Hoping to use their advantage in size against a smaller adversary and a to deploy a match-up zone that would keep the quick Lady Bears from penetrating the paint and scoring at will, Chester veteran Coach Pete Rickard felt confident before the fray that his girls could upend their hosts to orchestrate the start of a new world order in the Class C hierarchy.
The assumption is that currently undefeated John A. Coleman Catholic will snare the number one seed in the Sectional tournament. Consequently, teams like Chester, Tuxedo and Tri-Valley covet the idea of being seeded number two in order to avoid the Lady Statesmen until the finals.
With two losses against eight wins coming in, and both of those defeats in league play including a six point defeat against Tuxedo, Chester was in a must-win situation to improve its lot. That said, the pressure was equally intense on the undefeated Tri-Valley Lady Bears . T-V Coach John Tenbus has schooled his young squad to approach every game with the intensity of a playoff.
Lethal Weapon #12: Chester's Mardelle Jean is a threat in every aspect of the game. She can drive, shoot the three, slash to the rim, dish it off and on defense harry you into exhaustion. But in this game T-V had her mostly under wraps.
It’s not about remaining undefeated. It’s about gearing up to be in the best position for the postseason. This ninth win of the year marks the midpoint of the struggle and though it bequeathed Tri-Valley a sectional berth, that is only the first step in the real upward scaling of Mt. Class C.
That said, as the motto for the NY lottery reminds us, “You’ve gotta be in it to win it.” At present, Tri-Valley is the only Division V team that’s already in it. Chester and Tuxedo only need one more win to join T-V in the big dance. Fallsburg needs three.
In addition to its size, Chester has arguably one of the finest guards in the Class C realm in junior Mardelle Jean. She can handle the ball with finesse, slash to the lane, dish it off and score from anywhere. Tri-Valley’s mission, one oft-repeated by Tenbus throughout the game, “Know where she is.”
Limiting the stalwart Jean to eight points was a major factor in the win. Early foul trouble consigned the lethal weapon to the bench as the Bears turned their focus in her absence towards sophomore Ashley Georges who would go on to lead the Lady Hambos with 13 points on the night.
Early on, Chester’s defense gave the overly-zealous Lady Bears fits and starts. Missing lay-ups, making errant passes and showing less patience than needed, Tri-Valley was outplayed in the early going and found itself behind at the outset.
There can be little doubt that T-V’s defense and its ability to overcome a height deficit by pulling down rebounds for second and third chance shot opportunities helped them to right the ship, pull ahead and then leave Chester far behind in its wake.
If the Bears unveiled one potential Achilles Heal, it was their inability to close out the game with authority. Leading by as much as 15 in the game’s waning minutes, they failed to grind down the clock, settling instead for quick and often ill-conceived shots that allowed Chester to chip away making the final score appear as if this was a close game, which it was certainly not.
The climb towards postseason success is a slippery slope, and while success in the regular season can grant passage into the tournament with an eye towards reaching the ethereal peak, it take sure-footed resolve and arduous preparation to be ready for the do-or-die battles to be staged on those lofty cliffs.
Coaches teach; players learn: Top: Chester's Pete Rickard. Bottom: Tri-Valley's John Tenbus
Before that championship encounter is staged, all teams save two will topple and fall, and no one wants to have their season end prematurely. To put it succinctly, the prologue of the season and its opening acts are now over as the curtain is going up on the cathartic scenes that will catapult this hardwood enactment towards its dramatic finish.
Tragedy or comedy? Like most good plays you have to see it through the final act to determine how it ends up.
T-V senior Erin Smith controlled the opening tip against Chester junior tall tree Amanda Schembri. Caroline Martin’s opening shot was rejected and the Lady Bears failed on the put back. Chester traveled but the Lady Bears missed two more inside shots. Chester missed its first chance as well but would score the opening two buckets as George drove for two and was fouled by Katlynn Greffrath. She missed the free throw. A put back by Chester freshman Simone Ayers made it four-zip.
Martin’s dish to Mareena DiMilia cut the deficit in half. Greffrath and Ayers traded buckets as T-V now trailed 6-4. Martin gave the Lady Bears the lead with a bucket and a free throw. Tight T-V defense forced a Chester turnover. Jean picked up her first foul and another travel call on the Lady Hambos followed an errant T-V pass that would have given Chester numbers going the other way.
It was early, but you could already feel that Chester’s attempt to deliver the early knockout punch was being countered by T-V jabs that were taking their toll.
From the latter first quarter juncture when Chester led 8-7 after a Jean lay up, Tri-Valley would go on to outscore Chester 7-0 to emerge from the first quarter with a 14-8 lead by dint of five points from DiMilia, four from Greffrath , three from Martin and two points from Erin Smith. Chester got a bucket apiece from Jean and two from Ayers.
Highlights from that first quarter included a nice dish across the lane from Martin to DiMilia for two points and DiMilia’s final bucket from the wing with .6 of a secosnd remaining in the frame punctuated with a made free throw.
Grace, style and agility: Tri-Valley's Jessica Lee shows it all.
The Lady Bears cheerleader added to the home-crowd approval with their timely spirit.
T-V inbounded to start the second quarter that would feature more even play between the two vying squads as each would score nine in the stanza. Sabrena Smith picked up her second foul early. Ayers cut the lead to 14-10 with a pretty turnaround but T-V capitalized on a steal as Erin Smith dished it to Greffrath for two more in the Bears’ column.
Ayers scored in the paint again but that would be all for her scoring for the remainder of the game as she’d end up with eight by night’s end. Chester turnovers continued but Schembri muscled in a put back to make it 16-14 as the Lady Hambletonians looked to reassert their early one-upmanship.
But as they did in the first quarter, the Lady Bears found extra resolve to end the quarter with a nice run from 3:27 when they led 16-14. Schembri missed a potential game-tying shot as the ball bounced out.
They’d get another chance at 2:31 after Sarah Schneyer missed and Greffrath blanked on the putback attempt. Chester turned it over yet again. But Greffrath tried to dribble through Chester’s packed two-three zone and hit the front rim. Jean had a chance to tie it up with free throws but managed only one of two.
With the ball on the floor Tenbus called for a time out anticipating a Chester possession arrow but the officials didn’t hear him. The ball went over to the Lady Hambos who turned it over again. Chester regained the lead for the last time as Georges made it 17-16 but a DiMilia put back of a miss by Schneyer began a 6-0 run that would close the quarter and knock the air out of Chester’s bid to hold bragging rights at the break.
The Lady Bears led 23-17 at the break. In that second quarter they got four from DiMilia enroute to her team-high 14 points. Great defense led to transition points against a clearly frustrated Chester contingent. Greffrath added two in the stanza as did Keira McHugh who put up a timely shot. Erin Smith hit one from the line.
Chester’s nine in the period came via four from Ayers, two points each from Georges and Schembri and one point from Jean.
Emotions and mindset play a big part in sports and you could see that in the third quarter as the Lady Bears came out to play their best basketball of the night, while Chester struggled as its big players could not keep up with T-V’s speed up and down the floor, nor wrest the ball from their smaller adversaries that would afford T-V offensive rebounds and second-chance scoring.
A 16-7 thrashing by T-V in the third period would lead to a 39-24 margin heading into the final eight minutes of the game. The quarter didn’t start out that way though as Tri-Valley missed its seventh lay up of the night. But Chester turned it over before DiMilia scored the first points of the frame.
Poise at the point: Great teams have it as does Tri-Valley with Sabrena Smith directing the flow.
Martin pushed the lead to ten. Sabrena Smith was fouled on her lay up attempt and hit two. She had gone scoreless in the first half but would post 13 in the second half beginning with this pair from the line.
Chester was limited to lone buckets by Georges, Marcella Brosnan and Jean along with a single free throw from Maggi Feldman. In comparison, the running, rebounding, stealing and scoring Lady Bears looked fresh and vibrant. The quarter which had already gone in T-V’s favor ended like the two prior with a Bears’ closing run, this one 6-2 over their blue-clad adversaries.
In that third quarter fusillade, Tri-Valley got ten points from fireplug Sabrena Smith, four from DiMilia and a bucket from Martin.
Heading into the final frame, Tenbus was preaching patience and use of the shot clock but the message wasn’t getting through to the overzealous Lady Bears who continued to run and shoot to their own detriment.
Six of the ten points the Lady Bears would score in the fourth quarter came from the line as Chester was over the limit. Just two baskets rang in, one from Greffrath and one from Erin Smith. Meanwhile, hurried shots, often involving sub-par looks gave Chester life enough to chip away at the 15 point deficit to cut it to seven by game’s end.
All the while Tenbus fumed at his team’s sudden loss of patience and poise. Eight points from Georges in the quarter included a trey as the Lady Hambletonians proved why they are apt to be a lethal foe down the stretch. Their 18 points in the fourth quarter, though too late to alter the outcome, was the best showing by either team all night.
Threes by Jean and Kathryn Jankeluras were also registered as T-V defenders were not getting back in position to challenge shots. A vital lesson was being played out here for Tri-Valley, one of many yet to be learned. You’ve got to be able to close out teams when you can and not leave them hanging around to bite you. Another two minutes had they existed in this game might have brought an upset and Tenbus knew it.
Chester 8-3 (4-3 OCIAA) made it interesting but still succumbed 49-42. Tri-Valley improved to 9-0 (5-0 OCIAA).
Rickard talked about the changing tenor of the game. “Their hustle, second shots and ability to get up and down the court, coupled with our inability to get up and down the court,” were the factors he cited.
Live to fight another day: Mardelle Jean fouls out of the game and stands next to Coach Peter Rickard.. Reminder to Mardelle and everyone else: What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger."
“Our advantage is we have big people. They have one big player in the middle. We put a smaller person on her who did a good job but they released and our bigs didn’t hustle back. If they don’t hustle back I have to go with a smaller and younger team. Mardelle got in some foul trouble. We didn’t stop dribble penetration (Sabrena Smith) so they got closer to the basket.”
Rickard noted that early on Tri-Valley did not get that kind of dribble penetration and weren’t shooting the ball well. “I think we came in a little bit afraid. My team will run the way Mardelle runs and if she isn’t going at it incredibly hard, my team will follow her motion.
They look for her, even if she’s guarded and so we had a lot of turnovers and she got into foul trouble as well. That run at the end of the first half hurt us. That was the changing point of the game,” he averred.
“I thought the pressure would be on them but I think we felt the pressure more thinking we had to win this game and we haven’t won a really big game in the four years I’ve been here. You build a program and this was a game I thought they would come up and win a big game on the road.” You could sense his disappointment and the look on his players’ faces really made it look like “Blue Monday.”
“You’ve got to learn how to win on the road. 49-42 looks good but they could have beaten us by 20. Coming up next is Eldred and then Tuxedo. Both games matter greatly for seeding presuming the Lady Hambos will get the one win they need to punch their ticket to the dance. Chester also has a league game remaining against Seward. They beat Fallsburg twice.
Chester only has 17 games on its schedule as it could not find another opponent. They beat Liberty and have O’Neill on the schedule. They’ll play Livingston Manor too.
Tenbus held forth on the game’s pro’s and cons. “We missed a lot of lay ups and a lot of easy shots. We just came out rattled. Nerves just got the better of us. Our girls knew this was against a team that played us closest so far. They’re a big team and athletic team. But once we settled in a little bit, got under control and started running our stuff we were okay.”
“We were standing still early on. We didn’t move around a lot and we threw the ball away early on. When our wings were standing still it’s easy to defend and get steals. The long passes over the top to try and get the break weren’t working either,” he observed.
“We’re trying to play up-tempo. But they’re still towing that fine line about when to break and when to pull it out and run offense.” Racing and forcing shots comes back to what Tenbus has alluded to in prior discussion: “learning how to defend when someone is right on them.”
Tenbus went on to expand on the idea. “There’s a saying that we use that there is a difference between playing fast and playing quick. Playing quick is where you’re under control and we’re still running through everything. Playing fast is where you’re trying to get up and down the floor and that’s where we have a lot of our turnovers and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. We always tell them to play quick but not fast.”
Tenbus agreed with Rickard that the flurry of points at the end of the first half was a big momentum shift. “Erin worked hard on offense to get the foul shots. Marenna worked very hard to get the rebounds and to put it back up. Mareena also got the steal and Keira McHugh having the presence to just go right up with it. She’s a bench player and if she’s hesitant there, we don’t even get a good look.”
“Everybody’s coming for us,” said Tenbus. “The target’s getting bigger. Everybody wants to be the one to knock us off and I keep reminding the girls that it’s a one-game season. We can only focus on one game at a time. I think switching to a two-three zone helped us a ton in the second half. We never really done that all year. It’s not in my philosophy to do it but Mardelle is excellent at getting to the basket so we contained her more. Early on we were giving her way too many opportunities.”
Jean did foul out near the end of the game.
“We have to live with being small and hopefully we can make up for that at the other end of the floor by scoring,” said Tenbus who understands that his team’s rebounding and aggressive tendency to dive for and grab loose balls or those held by their opponents is a major way of compensating for their disparity in height.
“We have to be scrappy. We can’t just go up and get rebounds. We have to work for every single one.” DiMilia led the team with 17 rebounds. “It’s a work in progress,” noted Tenbus.
From this writer’s standpoint, this game against a tough opponent provided more teachable moments. Face it, every team has its strong points and the best ones have many of them. Learning how to amend your weaknesses and strengthen your assets during the season prepares you for that kind of full-frontal attack you’ll see from teams in the sectionals.
So now for both teams, it’s on from this ridgeline to the next one. More battle-tested and hopefully more savvy, they’ll face their upcoming challenges the better for having played this game.
Yes indeed, the Bears went over this mountain and what do you think they saw? Rising promontories in the distance, a steeper climb ahead and somewhere far off in the distance a familiar mountain top which they hope to reclaim some weeks hence.
Chester’s missed step is far from fatal. Yes, the climb gets harder than it was. But that distant peak is in their sights too and they feel they’ve got the horses to carry them thither.
Time will tell.
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