WILLIAMSPORT - There were tears and blood for Line Mountain, and that was in a win.
Survival was the optimum word for the Eagles Wednesday at Williamsport in a 50-45 win over Cowanesque Valley in their District 4 Class A semifinal.
The still undefeated Eagles (24-0) will now try to derail Lourdes' hopes of a fourth straight district title as the two local teams meet up for the second straight year in the championship game, although this year's tilt is still at a site and time to be determined.
Cowanesque Valley jumped out to an 8-2 lead after the Indians' Carley Murdock nailed a pair of 3-pointers, stunning the Eagles.
Line Mountain fought back to take the lead at the end of the first and trailed only once more the rest of the game, despite some hairy situations toward the end.
With this game out of the way, Line Mountain head coach Mike Reed hopes his girls, with a game close to home guaranteed in the state playoffs, can relax a little bit on the court.
"I don't know if they were looking ahead or not," Reed said. "If they were, it's not from talking about it. We just haven't been sharp, and I hope it's because we had two weeks off and trying to get back into it."
"And I think we're a little tight with the undefeated thing. If you're undefeated and you get to the district championship game, if you win it's great, if you lose then your one loss came at the district championship game. If you lose in the first round, you don't want do that. You don't even want to do that in this round, because then you have to win again so you don't get stuck with Steel-Hi in the first round of states. I think they're feeling a little bit of that pressure."
A loss in the district final certainly didn't hurt the Eagles last year on their way to the state quarterfinal round.
If Line Mountain wants more this year, it'll have to shoot better than the 33 percent against Cowanesque Valley.
While Kasey Long, the Tri-Valley League Player of the League, managed to score 15 points, she uncharacteristically missed 16 shots, most of them layups.
Long did make up for it with 11 rebounds, and seemed to come alive after she was sent hard to the floor that drew some tears but no fouls.
"I'm not sure," Reed said. "She was missing tons of shots that she usually makes. Part of it was that she wasn't getting it up on the glass. I don't know if she didn't have her body under control or didn't have her legs under her. The shots were getting on the rim and rolling off. I think it was just a matter of getting her going. We ran a couple of back-screen plays where we got her wide open layups and when she hit that couple, she got her confidence back."
Mikhail Whitcomb's confidence never seemed shaken despite needing to come off the floor to deal with a bloody knee. Whitcomb led all scorers with 20 points, and hit 6-of-8 free throws down the stretch to seal the win after the Indians clawed to within four points late in the game.
"(Cowanesque Valley) made some tough shots in the second half," Reed said.
Jade London hit some timely shots for the Eagles and scored 10 points, while on the rebounding end Madison Lagerman grabbed nine boards.
Game Summary
COWANESQUE VALLEY (45) - Murdock 5 0-1 14, H. Painter 1 2-4 4, S. Painter 4 2-4 10, Andrews 5 3-4 13, Williams 0 0-0 0, Baker 0 0-0 0, Farman 2 0-0 4. Totals 17 7-13 45.
LINE MOUNTAIN (50) - Ci. Lahr 1 0-0 2, Long 6 2-3 15, Bethge 0 0-0 0, London 4 2-3 10, Ch. Lahr 0 0-0 0, Lagerman 1 1-2 3, Whitcomb 6 8-12 20, Menko 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 13-20 50.
Cow. Valley 11 8 7 19 - 45
Line Mtn. 12 13 11 14 - 50
3-point FGs: Murdock 4, Long.