Hegedus Layup in Overtime Gives Karns City One-Point Win Over A-C Valley, Tightens KSAC South Race

| January 4, 2018


FOXBURG, Pa. (D9Sports) – Emily Hegedus’ driving coast-to-coast layup with 6.6 seconds left in overtime lifted Karns City to a 51-50 win over A-C Valley in a key KSAC South game at A-C Valley Wednesday night.

(Karns City’s Emily Hegedus was named the Hager Paving Player of the Game)

Hegedus split right between A-C Valley defenders Olivia Boocks and Allison Sherman for the game-winning layup.

“I was expecting everyone to collapse on me, but they didn’t,” Hegedus said. “I was like this is my go, so I made some moves and got the layup. I was really happy about that.”

A-C Valley head coach Dave Sherman was left wondering how Hegedus, easily Karns City’s best player who finished the night with 30 points and nine rebounds, was allowed to get up court unimpeded.

“We just didn’t get back the way we should have,” Dave Sherman said. “But they are high school kids. You are going to have good plays like we did and you are going to have mistakes along the way. That’s what happened. It is what it is. There is nothing you can do about it but learn from it.”

With still over five seconds left and a speedy guard in Boocks on its side, A-C Valley still had a chance to win the game. But Boocks’ hurried layup as time was expiring wouldn’t fall.

“I thought she had one more step,” Dave Sherman said. “Had she taken one more step, she finishes right at the rim and we win. She just got in a little bit of a hurry because she felt like the clock was ticking down on her. She didn’t realize how much time she had.”

If Boocks had connected with the shot it would have meant two buzzer beaters for A-C Valley, which forced overtime when Ellie Thompson was left free from about eight feet away as time expired in regulation to tie the game at 45.

“That’s a play we’ve had in since last year,” Sherman said. “There is an option off of that where she rolls back, especially if they are overplaying it. It’s funny, Jeff Loughry (a teacher at A-C Valley who coaches boys’ basketball at Grove City and who formerly coached boys’ basketball at Karns City) and I were sitting at an in-service one day and he showed it to me. He said ‘we run this all the time. It never works, never works.’ We ran it tonight, and she peeled off of the formation and was wide open.”

Hegedus said Karns City overcommitted to Boocks on the play.

“We were looking at Boocks because we knew she was a good shooter,” Hegedus said. “We just lost track of (Thompson). She shot a good shot, and it brought us down. But we got back up.”

Here more of Hegedus’ thoughts on the game.

Thompson’s game-tying shot marked just the second time the contest was tied, as Karns City led the game from the 6:50 mark of the first quarter until Cami McNany hit a 3-pointer with 14.5 seconds left in regulation to knot the game at 43. That ended a string of almost 33 minutes the Lady Gremlins held the lead for.

But Livia Andreassi was fouled with 4.5 to go and hit both free throws to put Karns City up 45-43, and the Lady Gremlins had a foul to give and smartly gave it after A-C Valley inbounded the ball before Thompson tied the game.

Then in overtime A-C Valley took its first and only lead of the game when McNany hit another three 55 seconds into the extra session to put the Lady Falcons up 48-45.

Hegedus answered with two free throws to make it 48-47, but Boocks hit two charity shots with 38.6 seconds left to restore the lead to three.

Again it was Hegedus, this time with an underhand layup between two defenders, with 27.9 left to cut the deficit back to one, 50-49.

“It actually was a difficult shot,” Hegedus recalled. “But I knew I had to score. I knew we were down and I needed to score, so that is what I did.”

Karns City was then forced to foul Boocks again, but this time she missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Andreassi was able to tie up the A-C Valley rebounder with the possession arrow favoring the Lady Gremlins leading to Hegedus’ game-winning shot.

CHRIS’ THOUGHTS

1. Hegedus is the best guard in District 9

And I don’t think it is even close. The senior, who was a first-team All American Awards & Engraving D9Sports.com All-District Player a year ago and a pre-season All-District honoree this year, is now averaging 25.4 points per game and has scored at least 30 in two of her last three games. And teams can concentrate on her. The Lady Gremlins have some other really nice role players, including Andreassi, who had six points and 11 rebounds, and Sara Knox, who had seven points and 12 rebounds, Wednesday. But teams know if they stop Hegedus they stop Karns City. The problem is, no one has found out a way to stop her. All Steve Andreassi, who is in his first year as the head coach for Karns City but had been an assistant in Hegedus’ first three years, had to do was give her a look at the end of the game.

“We made eye contact from the bench when (Boocks) missed the foul shot,” Steve Andreassi said. “Emily got the ball, and I tried to get the attention of Liv and Sara to try to set a screen for her, but she didn’t need it. She is a special player. She is on the verge of becoming our all-time leading scorer. Who else would you want to have the ball in that situation?”

2. A-C Valley deserves credit, the Lady Falcons could have folded but didn’t.

To say things weren’t going A-C Valley way over the first 19 or so minutes of the basketball game would be an understatement. The Lady Falcons shooting was colder than the weather outside, as they made just one of their first 20 shots, 3 of 22 in the first half and four of 25 while getting down 18, 28-10.

But there was no quit in this group, who has high expectations. An 11-0 run to end the third quarter had A-C Valley back in the game at 28-21, and when Boocks got a steal and a hoop with 6:25 to play in regulation it was all of a sudden a four-point game, 29-25.

But Hegedus hit a three and Knox completed an old-school 3-point play to push Karns City’s lead back to 10, 35-25, and the Lady Gremlins still led by 10, 39-29, following two Hegedus free throws with 2:35 to play.

That didn’t faze the Lady Falcons. Kylee Eaton hit a shot to make it 41-33, and after a semi-controversial call where one official said the ball went out of bounds off A-C Valley only to be overruled by an official farther away giving the ball back to the Lady Falcons, Boocks nailed a 3-pointer to make it 41-36. Two Thompson baskets then made it 41-40 before McNany hit the game-tying 3-pointer.

“They don’t quit,” Dave Sherman said. “Not these guys. They will run through a brick wall before they do that. They are competitors through and through. That is why they are successful.”

3. Karns City could really grow off this win.

While Hegedus is a superstar and Andreassi played a key role in Karns City’s run to a fourth straight District 9 title last year, the rest of the Karns City squad is experienced. But they way they shook off blowing the lead and then getting down in overtime only to find a way to win the game could go along way for this group, and Steve Andreassi said as much.

“After (the Thompson shot) they came over a little dejected at the start of overtime,” Steve Andreassi said. “But they said, this is it. We are deciding if we are going to be a team that is going to finally come back from a game like this and see if we can finish it, and they did it.”

4. Did Karns City figure out how to defend A-C Valley by playing a tight zone?

Part of the reason for A-C Valley’s rugged first-half shooting was Karns City was able to pack it into a zone and force the Lady Falcons away from their bread-and-butter Thompson, who came into the game averaging 21 points a game but was held to 10. The Lady Falcons were able to finally attack the zone a bit better in the second half and were helped when Knox got into some third-quarter foul trouble, but I expect other teams to copy Karns City’s blueprint as the season goes along.

“Our goal was to keep their two interior players (Thompson and Eaton) off the board, and I think we did pretty well with that, especially in the first half,” Steve Andreassi said. “That was our goal.”

“We played their game in the first half,” Sherman said. “We did a better job after halftime.”

5. Karns City dominated the boards, and it was the difference.

Karns City outrebounded A-C Valley 44-23 including 21-7 on the offensive glass, which was part of the reason the Lady Gremlins came out on top.

“We packed it into the paint and got rebounds,” Hegedus said.

THE OUTCOME

Karns City’s win creates a three-way tie for first in the KSAC South win the Lady Gremlins moving to 6-3 overall and 4-1 in the conference and A-C Valley falling to 8-2 overall and 4-1 in the conference. Meanwhile, Moniteau beat Redbank Valley and the Lady Warriors are also 4-1 in league play and 4-5 overall. Moniteau beat Karns City earlier this season but lost to A-C Valley.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Karns City’s toughest stretch of the season continues with a road game at Cranberry Friday before the Lady Gremlins host North Clarion Wednesday.They then get what should be a breather when they travel to Clarion-Limestone Jan. 12 before hosting Forest Area Jan. 16.

A-C Valley is at Forest Area at West Forest Friday before hosting Punxsutawney Monday and going to Clarion Jan. 12.

KARNS CITY 51, A-C VALLEY 50, OVERTIME

Score by Quarters

Karns City 9 9 10 17 6 – 51
A-C Valley 2 5 14 24 5 – 50

KARNS CITY – 51

Alyssa Stitt 2 0-0 6, Emma Clark 1 0-0 2, Emily Hegedus 8 11-12 3, Sara Knox 2 3-3 7, Liv Andreassi 1 3-4 6, Madison Kelly 0 0-0 0, Emily Huff 0 0-0 0. Totals 14 17-19 51.

A-C VALLEY – 50

Cami McNany 4 0- 10, Kylee Eaton 2 0-0 4, Olivia Boocks 6 2-3 17, Annie Viertel 1 0-0 3, Ellie Thompson 5 0-0 10, Brooke Irwin 2 0-0 4, Allison Sherman 1 0-0 2, Emma Fox 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 2-4 50.

Three-pointers: Karns City 6 (Hegedus 3, Stitt 2, Andreassi 1). A-C Valley 6 (Boocks 3, McNany 2, Viertel 1).

Rebounding: Karns City 21 offensive, 23 defensive, 44 total (Knox 12, Andressi 11, Hegedus 9). A-C Valley 7 offensive, 16 defensive, 23 totals (Eaton 5, McNany 4, Boocks 4, Thompson 4).


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