Lady Bombers stun Wilson with 51-48 win

Palmerton head coach Don Delich needed a spark.

After watching his team get in foul trouble and blow a 18-point lead in the second quarter, Delich asked sophomore Kelsey Hay, the Lady Bombers' leading scorer if she could give him some minutes.

Hay, who dislocated her knee in last week's win over Saucon Valley, didn't play Tuesday in a loss to Notre Dame of Green Pond and sat out the entire first half last night against Wilson.

She scored the first two points of the third quarter with two free throws and scored the final point of the game on a free throw with seven seconds left and the Bombers pulled off a big 51-48 Colonial League victory.

"I put Kelsey (Hay) in to start the second half because I felt I needed to do something to change the momentum," said Delich. "In that second quarter, we were in foul trouble and had four JV's on the court. We were in a lot of trouble and I felt the only thing I could do to change things was put Kelsey out there."

Hay's presence, plus Wilson's best player (Sondrine Glovas) picking up her fourth foul with 5:27 left in the third quarter proved to be two keys in the second half.

Glovas finished the night with just eight points, thanks to a smothering defense by Gina Farquhar, and her miss of a three-point attempt with one second left gave the Bombers (8-4, 5-3) the "W".

The Bombers went on an 11-point run in the opening quarter and led 20-5 after the first eight minutes with Kristen Romano scoring eight of her 15 points and Casey Rinfret seven of her game-high 20 points.

"We did things that we could do," said Delich looking back at an almost flawless first quarter by his team. "We worked on getting a little confidence. That loss to Notre Dame was unfortunate, but I think we learned a little something about ourselves.

"This just isn't the Kelsey Hay show. The six girls that are left are pretty darn talented and they have confidence in themselves. If we hadn't gotten in foul trouble, they could have kept playing."

Rinfret played with great poise early on and helped run the offense that scored those 20 first quarter points.

And after the Warriors (8-3, 6-2) went on a run to build up a 43-32 lead with 2:10 left in the third quarter, the Bombers never panicked.

Hay scored seven of her eight points in that quarter and Romano added four. Rinfret's six points and a driving bucket by Romano with 1:27 remaining gave the Bombers the lead for good.

Wilson salvaged a split with a 32-31 comeback win in the JV game despite Morgan Mummey's 13 points and Em Meinhart's 12.

WILSON

Muschlitz 1-4-6-7, Swiatek 1-3-5-5, Spirko 6-7-8-19, Glovas 4-0-1-8, Dombroski 2-0-0-5, Touhey 0-3-4-3, Stocks 0-1-5-1, Smith 0-0-0-0, Speigle 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 14-18-29-48.

PALMERTON

Smith 0-0-0-0, Mummey 0-0-0-0, Reimer 0-4-9-4, Romano 6-1-2-15, Meinhart 0-0-0-0, Rinfret 7-5-8-20, Farquhar 1-0-0-2, Snyder 1-0-0-2, Hay 2-4-5-8. TOTALS: 17-14-24-51.

Wilson 5 23 15 5 - 48

Palmerton 20 8 11 12 - 51

Three-pointers: Wilson - Muschlitz 1, Dombroski 1. Palmerton - Romano 2, Rinfret 1.