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A red-hot start on both ends of the floor helped Bethlehem lead by as many as 15 in the first half and take a 31-20 lead to the locker room, but the Eagles had to weather a dogged comeback from Nyack (25-2) and star sophomore Rakiya Mohammed, who scored 14 of her game-high 21 points in the second half.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey just will not give up, this team,\u201d Bethlehem coach Trish Piccini said. \u201cThey do not give up. They play within themselves and they execute the game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Bethlehem missed its first six field goal attempts of the third quarter, Mohammed and the Redhawks slowly chipped away at the Eagles\u2019 lead, eventually closing within 33-28. Bethlehem\u2019s first made basket of the second half, a 3-pointer by eighth-grader Brynn Elfeldt, helped calm things down for the Eagles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all played together and knew what we needed to do,\u201d said Elfeldt, who led the Eagles with 15 points. \u201cI think we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem shot just 4 of 21 from the field in the second half, but those few shots and a 20-of-25 performance at the free throw line were enough to ward off\u00a0Nyack\u2019s rally.<\/p>\n
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The biggest shot came at the end of the third quarter when Griesbach, who was just 2 of 13 from the field on the game, rebounded an airballed 3-pointer from a teammate, dribbled along the baseline to get beyond the arc and knocked down a corner 3 just before the buzzer to put Bethlehem up 43-32.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gave us a push for the fourth quarter to win the game,\u201d Griesbach said. \u201cFor me, obviously, it got my shooting confidence up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is, I think, one of the most underrated players,\u201d Piccini said of Griesbach. \u201cShe controls the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem made just one field goal in the fourth quarter, a short shot by Ella McCarthy with 4:51 to play, but it was enough. Griesbach and Elizabeth Kearney hit five free throws in the game\u2019s final 61 seconds, and when Mohammed split a pair of free throws with 7.1 seconds left to keep it a two-possession game, the Eagles were finally able to get over the finish line to the delight of a decidedly pro-Bethlehem crowd at HVCC.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s so crazy,\u201d Elfeldt said. \u201cEveryone works so hard and it\u2019s paid off. We made it this far.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a balanced effort for Bethlehem, as along with Elfeldt\u2019s 15 points, McCarthy and Kearney each scored nine, Griesbach scored eight and Makaya McCann scored seven.<\/p>\n
Now, just one more win stands between Bethlehem and an achievement that seemed improbable\u00a0\u2014 if not impossible\u00a0\u2014 only a month ago.<\/p>\n
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\u201cReally, it\u2019s surreal. That\u2019s the word for it,\u201d Piccini said. \u201cWe just take it one day at a time and just keep thinking that the confidence we get with each game helps us with the next game. It\u2019s a pretty awesome group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethlehem junior Lily Griesbach takes a jumper in front of Oswego junior Giada Pezzlo during the Class AA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1216,153,155,154,47172,1215,296,726],"class_list":["post-148135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-alco","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-hs-basketball-girls","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}