BY JEFF FALK

 SOUTH LEBANON – The Cedar Crest girls’ basketball team has proportionately progressed as the season has gone on. But the later the year has become, the stiffer the Falcons’ competition has become.

 In some ways, the season has caught up to Cedar Crest.

 On Monday night at “The Cage’, Cedar Crest’s season became a little more difficult, in the face of a 39-34 loss to Harrisburg, in a consolation semifinal of the District Three Class AAAAAA playoffs. The Falcons hung with the athletic Cougars throughout, but experienced difficulties making shots down the stretch – from both the field and the foul stripe.

 After clinching the Lancaster-Lebanon Section One championship, Cedar Crest has dropped four of its last six games and now stands 18-8 overall. Because District Three sends seven teams to the PIAA Class AAAAAA postseason, the fifth-seeded Falcons will host seventh-seeded Wilson on Thursday at 7 p.m. for that right.

 Back on December 11th, Cedar Crest defeated Wilson 53-44 in a non-league contest at ‘The Cage’.

 Last night marked the Falcons’ first home loss of the year.

 With the outcome, eighth-seeded Harrisburg improved to 14-9 on the season.

 “We’re 18-8 and every team that beat us was a good team,” said Cedar Crest head coach Jim Donmoyer. “We haven’t lost to a bad team yet. We played a great schedule. We won our section. We won a game in districts. It’s a nice long 26-game season. If we won another game, it would be awesome.

 “You always want to go as far as you can,” continued Donmoyer. “I think it’s more important for the seniors to go to states. They’ll take me with them if they go. I hope it’s important to them.”

  The Falcons couldn’t buy a point when the outcome was on the line in the middle of the fourth quarter.

 A pair of charity tosses by Falcon Raven Morgan and a three-pointer from teammate Molly Bucher with 3:36 remaining tied the score at 32. But all Cedar Crest could muster the rest of the way were single free throws from Morgan Thomson and Morgan, as the Cougars outscored it 7-2 to pull away.

 But the Falcons certainly had their chances.

 “I was pleased with our defensive effort,” said Donmoyer. “I thought we played really well defensively. But we didn’t execute the offense. We didn’t shoot the ball well. We missed ten foul shots and lost by five. We shoot foul shots good all year, and we couldn’t make them tonight.

 “When you’re playing at this level, it’s tough,” Donmoyer continued. “We didn’t play a whole bad game. When you play in a close game like that, two or three mistakes can be the difference.”

 A similar scenario played out for Cedar Crest in the third quarter.

 After trailing by five points at the break, a three-pointer from Kaitlin Kline with 1:43 left in the stanza knotted the score at 25. But Harrisburg tallied the final three points of the third, to carry a little working margin into the final quarter.

 “They handled it pretty well,” said Donmoyer of his troops and the sense of urgency surrounding the contest. “Everybody knows what time of year it is. Everybody knows the urgency. We still have another chance. We played hard. We wanted to win.”

 Of the six Falcons to score points, Morgan was the only one to reach double digits, with 11. Cedar Crest went 13-for-23 on free throw attempts, while Harrisburg netted 11 of its 28 charity attempts.

 “For this level, I thought we had a good game plan,” said Donmoyer. “I thought we knew what they were going to do. We executed the game plan on defense, but not on offense. After the first quarter, we settled in. We gained some confidence.”

 Cedar Crest experienced difficulties adjusting to Harrisburg’s extended pressure on the ball at the start. The Falcons didn’t score over the first 3:50 of the contest, but a hard cut to the bucket by Hannah Woelfing knotted the score at nine, late in the first period.

 “We have problems with Mid-Penn (Conference) teams. Teams that are big and athletic,” said Donmoyer. “This is the way it is. I thought we played a good non-league schedule, but our section was down. This (the district playoffs) is a whole, totally different thing. You’ve got to play two good halves against teams of this caliber. That’s (Harrisburg) the fourth-place team in the Mid-Penn. The competition is a step up.”

 Despite holding the Cougars for a score-less stretch of nearly four minutes in the second period, the closest Cedar Crest could come to the lead was three points. Harrisburg enjoyed a 20-15 margin at the break.

 “It’s win or go home,” said Donmoyer of Thursday. “That’s where we’re at. That’s the position we put ourselves in. We’ll see how bad we want that game.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 To purchase images in this article email jkfalk2005@yahoo.com, or to view more go to https://lebanonsportsbuzz.com/photo-gallery/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2018-19 Cedar Crest Girls’ Basketball Results