FIGHT TO THE FINISH…MILLS GIRLS BATTLE PAST GOLDEN KNIGHTS
Coach Andrea Dziekan and her Lady Marauders celebrate Sunday’s win!
Fred Miller-MHTS
Photos-Kevin Montano-MHTS
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Another game…another last minute win…another truck load of antacid tablets delivered to the Marauder nation following Sunday’s, fight to the finish, Class D semifinal, girls hoops win, 43-42, over the Golden Knights from Copenhagen.
Copenhagen? Yup…Copenhagen the Frontier League school that did battle with the New York Mills boys team in the opening round of the Section 3 playoffs, a couple of Saturday’s ago,at Beekman.
The Golden Knights can ball and do not back down. Head coach Natalie Scott brought a scrappy bunch of green and gold clad Knights to OCC with a (15-3) overall record and seeded third on the Class D bracket.
The second-seeded Marauders (17-3) did not intimidate the team from the north country…not at all.
The Frontier League is the the same league that sent Sackets Harbor south, on Sunday, to tangle with Oriskany.
Carly Dziekan # 32 battles for the ball!
Could New York Mills make it two-for-two for the CSC IV against the Frontier League? It would take just about all the time that was allowed for us to find out.
New York Mills entered action having survived a scare against their longtime rivals from Hamilton, last Wednesday night in New York Mills. That game ended with four point win, 43-39.
The Lady Marauders had to scratch and claw their way past the Emerald Knights.
Would it be more of the same against the Golden Knights? Yup!
How much of a tussle would this one be? So much so, that it took late fourth steal by, rising star, freshman Cassidy Albright with 20 seconds left, and a key make from the line, by Albright to help hold off the hard charging Golden Knights.
Albright’s late game heroics seemed to be unnecessary when junior Dominique Talerico completed a three-point play, the old fashioned way, to help the Mills build a late 6 point lead 40-34 with just 3:57 left in the game.
A free throw by Carly Dziekan, just a short time later, gave the Marauders what seemed to be an insurmountable 7 point lead with 3:22 to go.
Dziekan had another great game for New York Mills, scoring a team high 13 points to pace the Marauders.
Speaking of the free throw Carly made, she missed the next. The miss was one of 14 misses from the charity stripe for the Maruders who were just 15 of 29 from the stripe.
The missed freebies helped make this a game,close, a lot longer than it needed to be. Wanna bet the Marauders will be taking plenty of practice free throws before their Section 3 Class D showdown against Oriskany, at the Carrier Dome, on Wednesday night.
Speaking of playing well, Talerico had another solid outing for New York Mills chipping in 10 points and was again a beast on the boards.
As hard as the Marauders tried they could not put the Knights away.
# 44 Dominique Talerico guards # 21 Rachel Muncy.
A free throw by Marinda Allen,with 19 seconds left, helped Copenhagen chop the Marauders 7 point lead down to just three, 43-40, as fans on both sides of the gym chewed hard on their finger-nails.
A bucket by Allen with 10.5 seconds to go really put a scare into the Mills fans as their team led by just one 43-42.
After two more misses, at the line, with just 3.8 seconds to go the Marauders had to hang on for dear life as a last second shot by the Golden Knights came up just short as the horn sounded.
Ten first half points by Logan Wheeler helped Copenhagen jump out to a 13-10 lead, on New York Mills, after one quarter of action. Wheeler ended up scoring 17 to pace Copenhagen.
Wheeler was on fire, early on, as she hit twice from the field in,twenty seconds, to help the Knights build a four point lead 8-4 with 3:12 to go in the first.
Amanda Maciol made her presence felt as she scored the next four points of the game to tie things up at 8-8 with 2:30 left on the opening eight minutes of play.
When the first half ended the Marauders were still down, but just by two 22-20.
Carly Dziekan scored to put New York Mills on top, 26-24, with 6:00 minutes left in the third.
The Marauders were suddenly up five when Dziekan scored again off a beautiful feed from teammate DyAnna Thomas as the third wound down.
A seven point Mills lead 35-28 was cut to five as Copenhagen’s Rachel Muncy banked one in off glass.
Another seven point lead disappeared when Logan Wheeler found the range from behind the three point line with 2:59 to go.
Marauders fans…..loud and proud!
From there New York Mills did what they always seem to do…dig down deep and scratch and claw their way to another hard fought win.
A win that earns the Lady Marauders their second trip to the Section 3 Class D Finals in the last four years.
It will be a tall order for New York Mills as they square off against the undefeated Oriskany Redskins on Wednesday night at the Carrier Dome. The Marauders are 0-3 against the Redskins this season.
Will that change on Wednesday night? Can’t wait to find out…see you there!
New York Mills 43 Copenhagen 42
1 2 3 4 Total
Copenhagen 13 9 6 14 42
New York Mills 10 10 15 8 43
Copenhagen:
Logan Wheeler-17
Rachel Muncy-7
Brianna Muncy-5
Brooke Spaulding-4
Elizabeth Martin-4
Marinda Allen-4
Cassidy O’Donnell-1
# 20 Megan Crist looks for open man as # 14 Maci Spaulding defends.
New York Mills:
Carly Dziekan-13
Dominique Talerico-10
Cassidy Albright-6
Megan Crist-5
Amanda Maciol-4
DyAnna Thomas-3
Mikah Inkawhich-2
