WZAR News

By Phil Haddad

This game was a do or dies game, and the winner continues their quest to make the state AAAA playoffs. The loser goes home. Their season would be over. There was a lot riding for both the Lady Bears from Boyertown and the Lady Cardinals from Upper Dublin.

Boyertown had a lot to prove in this game after a devastating 25-23 loss to Great Valley last Wednesday night. The Lady Bears were unable to get their offense going, and their shooting shot a horrid 18% from the field. The Lady Bears gave up four points in the last five seconds of the game.Tonight the Lady Bears came out with a purpose, and totally dominated and got a 61-23 victory. They now face the winner of the Spring-Ford-Lower Merion game Wednesday night at Boyertown.

“We talked about playing more of a five person game and getting everyone involved,” said head coach Jason Bieber. “We wanted to play well, and we did that. Our girls came out a little angry and prove that we belong and they definitely did that.”

Junior guard, Kelly Furman, wasn’t surprised with how well she and her teammates came out tonight and took it to Upper Dublin. “I had a feeling after the loss on Wednesday that we were going to come together closer than ever,” said Furman.  “We didn’t want our season to end. We played for the seniors and for everyone and we just wanted it more than Upper Dublin.”
Boyertown came out in a 2-3 zone, forcing Upper Dublin to make bad passes. Senior Lauren Walker, hit a three point shot to open up the scoring. Junior Kelly Furman hit a three point shot and went 2-4 from the foul line in the quarter. Junior guard Jess Schlesman got a steal and a bucket along with hitting a foul shot to get into the act scoring. When the first quarter ended, it was Boyertown with a 13-2 lead.   The second quarter the Boyertown defense continued to force turnovers and poor shooting from the Lady Cardinals. The Lady Bears got balanced scoring from Jess Schlesman, Brooke Fisher, Brooke Mullen, Kelly Furman. Furman had two three point shots and five points for the quarter. The Lady Bears used their speed and Schlesman got four points thanks to steals and running the fast break. Boyertown extended their lead at halftime to 29-12 at intermission.

Although the Lady Bears did shoot well from the foul line shooting 9-16 (56%) in the first half. That was a bit of a concern for Coach Bieber. That’s something that he knows that they need to improve upon if they want to extend their season.

“We ended up 10-21 (48%) for the game,” said Bieber. “If we want to continue to advance, we can’t keep doing that. We need to do better with that, foul shooting and rebounding. If we don’t do better with those things, it will hurt us in the long run.”

The third quarter began with the Boyertown defense continuing to wreak havoc and shutdown the Lady Cardinals on offense. Boyertown got balanced scoring from their staring five and Kaitlyn Eisenhard had six of the team’s 17 points in the quarter. The other freshman, Brooke Mullen had four points, along with a three point shot from Fisher, a field goal by Schlesman and a field goal by Furman. When the quarter ended Boyertown extended their lead by 25 points 46-21.

The Lady Bears shot the three point shot much better tonight hitting 7-10 (70%) tonight a far cry from their last game, where nothing would drop for them. They practiced yesterday along with having a shoot around today before their game. The coaches were hoping that the players would get back in rhythm and start to see their shots drop. “When you’re an outside shooting team, you are going to have bad nights,” said Bieber. “We don’t expect to shoot 18% like we did against Great Valley. Tonight was one of those nights where everything was dropping for us.”

“We haven’t had a good game in a while, but we played the five people on the court,” said  Furman. “We played a good game  and we felt that helped. Our coaches knew that we needed to step up on offense because we haven’t played well in a while.”

The fourth quarter saw the Boyertown defense pitch a shut out, for most of the quarter before Leah Ellert scored the lone basket for the Lady Cardinals. Boyertown continued to get balanced scoring as Furman, Eisenhard scored a bucket each and Lauren Walker hit a three point shot. The Lady Bears got four points from Kaley Snyder and Krista Schauder scoring four points each. When the final buzzer blew Boyertown came away with a convincing 61-23 victory.

The defense came up big all game, and caused a lot of problems for Upper Dublin. There was only one team that scored over 30 points on Boyertown all season, so their defensive effort has been strong all season. “They played great defense and #23 (Kristen Furey) was a 1000 point scorer for them and is going to Holy Cross next year,” said Bieber. “We shut her down.

“We were also concerned about number three (Curtiena Goff) and number five (Taylor Bryant) driving to the basket. We did a really nice job playing defense. The one thing that hurt us is that we didn’t box out really well. That’s how they got some of their baskets on second and third chances.”

Bieber will admit that he wasn’t sure how his team would react to the Wednesday loss, but they definitely proved that they belonged in the playoffs. “They came in the last two days, and they were kind of energized and they really wanted to prove a point,” said Bieber. “They want to get to the state playoffs, and we have two more games that we need to win. It’s not going to get any easier, but I think we can beat anybody if we play like we did tonight. I don’t care who we play. We’re back in the way that we can beat anybody.”

Furman and her teammates know that Lower Merion or Spring-Ford will be a tough game no matter who they end up playing. “We’ll see how they (Lower Merion) plays against Spring-Ford, and how Spring-Ford plays against Lower Merion,” said Furman. “If we come out like we did tonight, we’ll have a good chance of winning.

Phil Haddad is a free lance writer and all comments can be sent to sports@wzartv.com.

On Friday, February 26th, a vehicle struck a tree near the intersection of Spring Garden Drive and Faye Drive in Colebrookdale Township, around 3:30p.m.  Reports were being given of one occupant with a bleeding head injury.  Nearby roads were shut down until the scene was cleared around 4:15p.m.

On Thursday February 25, 2010 at about 12:47 AM Boyertown Police responded to a 911 call for an assault at the Cumberland Farms convenience store on S. Reading Avenue in the borough. The clerk on duty at the store called 911 and reported that a customer had just assaulted him by throwing a cup of coins across the counter at him, striking him in the face. The victim suffered from bleeding cuts and bruises to his face, and was treated at the scene by medics from Boyertown Ambulance. The assault occurred after a verbal altercation between the actor and the clerk regarding the actor’s method of payment. The actor fled from the scene in a vehicle and was no longer at the location when police arrived. Police conducted an investigation, including a review of surveillance footage of the scene, and served a search warrant on a vehicle and a residence in the borough later the same day. As a result of their investigation Boyertown Police arrested William R. Foley 3rd, 23 years old, of 240 S. Washington Street in the borough. Foley is charged with simple assault, harassment, and public drunkenness, and was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Michael Hartman of Boyertown.

By Phil Haddad

After a 43-38 win over Avon Grove in the first round of the District 1-AAAA playoffs, the Lady Bears (20-5) and their coaching staff were looking for a better game. With a win over Great Valley (17-5), they would qualify for the state tournament. If not, there would be a play in games to see who the ninth seed team would be that would qualify for states.

In a game that saw Boyertown leading for most of 24 minutes, Great Valley tied the game with four seconds to go and with two and a half seconds gets a steal and a bucket to win the game 25-23. It was a very heart breaking loss, and now the Lady Bears have to come back and play the 15th seed Upper Dublin who lost to the number two seed, Council Rock North. Great Valley will advance to play the second seed Council Rock North at a neutral site. The Lady Bears game will be held on Saturday evening.

“We’re still in shock over it,” said head coach Jason Bieber. “It all comes down to we shot 50% from the foul line, and we struggled with their half court trap. I think we shot 16 or 18% from the field, and you can’t do that. You have to make your shots. Hands off to them they (Great Valley) played solid defense. Paul (Girone) does a great job, and they are a nice team. Credit them we didn’t hit the shots when we needed too.”

Boyertown’s defense was stifling in the first quarter, getting turnovers, but they were unable to .convert them into points. Senior Lauren Walker hit a three point shot for the first bucket of the game. Colleen O’Malley hit the first bucket for the Lady Patriots. Boyertown then shot four for eight from the charity stripe (foul line) in the first quarter. After the first eight minutes of the game, Boyertown lead 7-2.

Bieber was very happy with the solid defensive effort that his team game, in the first quarter. “We felt that we could shut them down,” said Bieber. “We honestly didn’t think they would play man that much because they didn’t match up well. Great Valley sagged off so much it looked like a zone.”

The second quarter started out much like the first quarter. Boyertown was unable to hit their shots, and their offense continued to struggle. Emily Hagar from Great Valley hit the first field goal of the second half to cut into the Lady Bears lead. Amanda Geimer shot a three point shot, and was fouled by Brooke Mullen.

Geimer was awarded three foul shots, and Geimer hit two of the three foul shot. The Lady Patriot defense held the Lady Bears without a field goal, but Boyertown was three for four from the foul line. At intermission, The Lady Bears lead was cut to 10-8.

“Shots weren’t just falling and they are shots that if we play 10 games, we are going to make a lot more of those shots,” said Bieber. “They just didn’t go, and that happens some times.”

Boyertown came out strong in the third quarter, and got two buckets from Jess Schlesman along with two three point buckets from freshman Kaitlyn Eisenhard and junior Kelly Furman. Boyertown was up 20-10 and Coach Girone called a time out with two minutes left in the third quarter. Great Valley finished off the third quarter was a 5-0 run however; the Lady Bears still lead 20-15 with one quarter to go.

Great Valley stepped up its defense, and lulled Boyertown into taking bad shots, and forcing turnovers. Bieber and the coaches told the players that they wanted to get the ball inside which they did a few times. However, when they did the Lady Bears were unable to make the shots. The coaches were concerned even though they played well in the first quarter.

“Usually our three point shots fall for us, and tonight they didn’t,” said Bieber. “We knew that we had to dictate the tempo and we didn’t do that. They dictated the tempo to us.”

The only bucket of the fourth quarter Boyertown got was a three point shot by Lauren Walker to put them up 23-15. The Lady Patriots had Tiffany Gouan hit one of two foul shots to make the score 23-16. Great Valley got a three point shot from Amanda Geimer to cut the Boyertown lead to four points 23-19. Emily Hagar hit a field goal to cut the lead to two points with 2:30 left in the game. Boyertown went into a stall offense, but was unable to hit a shot, or turned the ball over.

With under a minute to go in the game, Boyertown’s defense was solid and didn’t let Great Valley tie the game. However, the fourth time was a charm, as Sara Beirnes hit a layup to tie the game with four seconds left in the game. Boyertown tried to inbound the ball as the clock was running out, but Colleen O’Malley got the steal and the game winning bucket as the clock expires to give Great Valley the win.

The end of the game was very heartbreaking and disappointing for the team, coaches and their fans. “I’m more disappointed that we didn’t get the rebound before that,” said Bieber. “There were two opportunities for us to get the rebound and we didn’t get the rebound. If we do that, they have to foul and who knows what will happen at the foul line.

“If we do that, we don’t have to worry about her making that shot or inbounding the ball. In Hine sight, maybe we shouldn’t have inbounded the ball. We did and the girl made a steal along with making a basket in the last two and a half seconds. It happens, and as I told the girls in the locker room we’ve been a close knit family and now we need to see how close we are. We need to overcome this adversity and play better now. That’s what it comes down to, and I think we will.”

Trying to come back and rebound in their first play in game for the state tournament, will not be easy. The Lady Bears have a long road to hoe, if they want to qualify for the state tournament for the first time in over 10 years.

“We have to come in, stay as a team and remain tighter along with working through it,” said Bieber. “Our goal is to get to the state playoffs, and we still have that goal. We have it a little bit tougher, but it’s right there. We have to come in on Saturday and play a good game and get a win. We will see what happens.”

Phil Haddad is a free lance writer and all comments can be sent to sports@wzartv.com.

Crews were called out to a working chimney fire a little after 2p.m. at 234 Indian Line, West of Boyertown off of Funk Road and Rt. 73.  No additional companies were called out and there were not any reports of serious injuries.

WZAR News - February 2010

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