WILLIAMSPORT — Fountain Central girls basketball special season continued on Friday. The Mustangs traveled to Williamsport for to to take on Seeger for the Bi-County championship. After a sluggish first half which saw the Mustang offense only score 12 points and but only trail 16-12, shots began to fall in the final two quarters. Rylee Simko gave FC their first lead of the game at 20-19 with 2:40 left in the the third. The two WRC rivals ended up even at 24-24 after three quarters. In the final quarter FC hit three threes and it’s defense held firm and they out-scoreed Seeger 14-7 to win 38-31 to claim the Bi-County Championship.
The championship was the first for the Mustagns since the 2016-17 season as the Patriots had dominated in recent years winning the last four. The win over Seeger was also the Mustangs second win of the season vs the Patriots. Back on Dec. 5 the Mustangs snapped an 11 game losing streak to Seeger with a 30-28 win.
FC coach Sam Karr was all smiles and prous of his girls for overcoming a slow start.
“We were more focused and the ball was moving a lot better in that second half, “ Karr said. “We havnen’t been doing a good job of screening against a zone and we did a much better job of it in the second and Seeger never really adjusted which left us to get open shots. Not only did we get open shots but they began to fall in thos last to quarters. If we could hit shots consistently we’d be at another level. Rylee, Hannah, and Henley can all shoot and when we get them all on the same page and being confident, we’ll be tough to beat.”
Fountian Central (15-3) knocked down eight threes and more importantly six in the second half after going 2-11 in the first 16 minutes of the game. Hannah Prickett scored a game high 17 points and knocked down five threes for FC. Rylee Simko scored 11 and drilled the other three threes. Henley Good scored six, while Kacey Kirkpatrick and Bella Bacon each had two. The Mustangs for the game shot 12-37 (32%) from the field in the win and 8-24 (33.3%) from three. They shot 6-9 (66.6%) from the foul line, grabbed 28 rebounds and turned it over 14 times.
Prickett also spoke on the teams win and her individual performance.
“We know how to get each other going and that was the focus for us at halftime,” she said. “We’re all about continue to build each other up instead of talking about the thigns that didn’t go well. I have to give a huge credit to my teammates for just encouraging me to just keep shooting because they have all the trust in me that those threes will fall eventually.”
Seeger (10-4) was led by Rylea Wetz’s niene points. Cadence White added eight, Hannah Frodge four, Addison Shrader and Caleigh Purcell three whiile Kalli Peterson rounded out the scoring with two. The Patriots shot 9-26 (25%) in the loss from the floor and 2-5 (40%) from three. They were 9-12 (75%) from the foul line, grabbed 24 rebounds and turned the ball over 12 times.
The championship win for the Mustangs allowed them to cut down the nets at Williamsport and knock off another goal for Karr and his team. Playing 18 games already for the Mustangs, that means down the stretch in January, they’ll only play four more games which means a lot of practice time.
“This couldn’t be a better springbaord into January for us,” Karr said. “We have momentum, confidence and it makes practices different because these girls know they have some big things to play for. This team believes they can make some noise and that makes the whole program better.”
FC will take some much deserved time off before returning to action. Their first game back is scheduled for Jan. 9 when they travel to Covington.
