Bears win tourney title in OT

Cameron Caffrey never flinched.

She never wavered.

The Pleasant Valley sophomore knew what she had to do.

“When you’re on the foul line, you have all the time,” Caffrey said. “It’s just you and the basket.”

That was all Caffrey and the Bears needed.

Caffrey buried two free throws in the waning seconds to force overtime, and Pleasant Valley never looked back en route to a 66-62 win over Lehighton in the Lady Indian Holiday Classic championship game.

“It was a very high intensity game,” Caffrey said afterward. “I knew that their fans were all screaming, but you just gotta tune it out and you have all your teammates behind you. And I knew they trusted me and I trusted them. So I had to do it for them.”

Caffrey’s clutch shooting tied the game at 58-58 with 6.3 seconds remaining. The Bears (5-2) scored the first four points in overtime and never trailed in the extra period.

Caffrey finished with a team-high 21 points – eight of which came in the fourth quarter and overtime.

“I have all the confidence in the world in Cam,” Pleasant Valley head coach Nadia Gauronsky said of Caffrey. “She started since she was a freshman, and I just think she’s going to continue to be such an outstanding player for us.”

Caffrey’s free throws halted a torrid comeback from the Indians, who trailed 44-32 with 4:27 to play in the third quarter. Halftime adjustments helped Lehighton (7-1) chip away at the Bears lead, which was 40-29 at the intermission.

“We talked about it at halftime, and the girls responded,” said Indians head coach Joe Berezwick. “We made the adjustment of going to a 3-2 (zone), and it slowed them (Pleasant Valley) down in the second half.

“We were a play away from winning. You have to give Pleasant Valley certainly all the credit in the world. They’re a really, really good team. But I tip my hat to my kids, and my team, for just hanging in there. They could have folded the tent up. But they made it a game. There in overtime, Pleasant Valley just had a little bit more at the end.”

Lehighton’s rally was spearheaded by a game-high 38 points from Skylynn Faust and 16 points from Aubrey Blasiak. Faust scored 18 of her points in the second half and overtime, while Blasiak tallied 13 of her points after the intermission.

Faust tied the game at 54-54 with 2:21 remaining in the fourth quarter on a possession the senior started with a steal. Two free throws from Julia Frey with 2:04 to play in the fourth quarter gave the Indians a 56-54 lead. The lead swelled to 58-54 when Blasiak hit a free throw with 41.9 seconds to play.

But the Bears got another chance on a turnover. And Caffrey cashed in to send the game to overtime.

“We kept telling them in the huddle that we had had the lead the whole game,” said Gauronsky. “And that if we just relaxed a little bit, and when we were able to steal the ball, and leave somebody other than Faust or Blasiak to get the ball, was what we were trying to do.

“And we did that. We forced them into a bad pass into the middle, and I thought that swung momentum back to us.”

BEST OF THE BEST … Caffrey, Faust and Blasiak, along with Pleasant Valley’s Madison Rosenberg, Northern Lehigh’s Jada Saeger, Palmerton’s Linnaea Leister, were named to the Lady Indian Holiday Classic All-Tournament Team. Faust was named tournament MVP.

SO CLOSE … Faust’s 38 points were one shy of Lehighton’s school record.

DYNAMO … In addition to her 14 points, Pleasant Valley’s Masani Francis also player her typical stellar defense while also leading the Bears’ fast-break attack.

PLEASANT VALLEY

Caffrey 7-4-4-21, B. Clark 0-1-2-1, Miller 2-3-5-7, A. Clark 3-1-3-7, Rosenberg 2-4-4-9, Francis 5-3-6-14, Schwenck 3-1-2-7. TOTALS: 23-17-25-66.

LEHIGHTON

Brown 0-0-0-0, Frey 1-2-2-4, Long 0-0-2-0, Hibbler 0-0-0-0, Blasiak 3-8-11-16, Miller 1-0-0-2, Faust 15-7-13-38, Buchinsky 1-0-0-2. TOTALS: 21-17-28-62.

Pleasant Vy. 22 18 9 9 8 - 66

Lehighton 15 14 13 16 4 - 62

Three-pointers: Pleasant Valley – Caffrey 3, Rosenberg 1, Francis 1. Lehighton – Blasiak 2, Faust 1.