HS Girls’ Basketball: Siket shoots Schuylkill Haven past Tamaqua
Schuylkill Haven's Kylie Siket connects on one of her four 3-pointers during Monday's win over Tamaqua (Photo by Karlee Feger).
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — Kylie Siket couldn’t remember the last time she scored 20 points in a basketball game.
“Maybe fourth grade? Biddy basketball?” the Schuylkill Haven sophomore guard answered when posed the question.
That answer now is Monday night.
Siket drained four 3-pointers and scored a game-high 20 points as the Hurricanes surged past Tamaqua 47-34 in a Schuylkill League Division I girls’ basketball game at the CACL Center.
The victory gave Schuylkill Haven (10-3, 6-1 D-I) a season sweep over the Blue Raiders (12-3, 5-3) and kept the Hurricanes one game behind North Schuylkill (10-3, 8-0) in the loss column in the Division I standings.
“I just happened to be on,” Siket said humbly. “They were leaving me open so I just shot them.”
Siket’s two biggest shots came early in the third quarter.
Schuylkill Haven was held scoreless in the second quarter as Tamaqua built a 20-16 halftime lead. A free throw by Audrey Hutchinson broke a 10:37 scoring drought, and a free throw by Anna Schaeffer made it 20-18 with 6:37 left in the frame.
Siket then buried back-to-back 3-pointers from the left wing to put the Hurricanes ahead 24-20 and Haven never trailed the rest of the way.
“She played really well on both ends of the floor for us,” Schuylkill Haven coach Tony Sanders said of Siket. “She hit some key shots coming out of the half for us. That third quarter, she came out on fire for us and that’s what we needed.”
Siket was hot from the outset, driving in for a layup a few minutes into the game then scoring nine consecutive points in a two-minute stretch of the first quarter.
When Mckenna Runkle hit 1-of-2 from the foul line with 1:46 remaining in the frame, Schuylkill Haven led 16-4.
The Hurricanes, however, went ice cold at that point and Tamaqua took advantage.
The Blue Raiders scored the final four points of the first quarter to make it 16-8 after one period, then outscored Haven 12-0 in the second quarter to take a 20-16 halftime lead.
Lauren Ligenza scored 12 of her team-high 16 points in the first half, including eight in the second quarter, for Tamaqua.
“The first quarter we played pretty well,” Sanders said. “I don’t know what happened in the second quarter … we must have flipped the switch to off instead of keeping it on.”
Foul trouble was a big reason for Schuylkill Haven’s woes in the second quarter. Runkle sat the final 6:30 of the frame with two fouls, taking away the Hurricanes’ only true inside presence. Schaeffer picked up her second foul with 6:02 left in the half and senior guard/forward Alea Porter got her second with 4:48 remaining.
With those three on the bench for most of the period, Schuylkill Haven shot 0-for-11 from the field and committed nine of its 26 turnovers.
“They had (Runkle) and (Schaeffer) on the bench and we did take advantage of that,” Tamaqua coach Erika Davis said. “I told the girls that it’s probably the first time all season we listened and took advantage of what we do. But at the same time, it’s how we finish. We didn’t finish.”
Sanders’ message to his squad was simple: Keep shooting.
“We were getting looks at the basket, they just weren’t falling,” Sanders said. “We told them to stay aggressive, keep shooting it and be confident with what you’re doing.
“Defensively, we had to step it up a little bit.”
Schuylkill Haven was the more aggressive team in the second half on both ends of the floor and the results showed it.
After a physical third quarter, a free throw by Ligenza sliced Haven’s lead to 27-26 with 6:27 remaining. The Hurricanes then went on a 15-2 run to break it open, with Siket hitting her fourth triple and Schaeffer and Runkle each scoring six points.
“As a team, we just had to regroup,” Siket said of her team’s second-half play. “Once I hit those 3-pointers, everybody got the momentum going and it started us back up again.”
For Tamaqua, the same things that troubled the Blue Raiders in the first meeting with Schuylkill Haven and in Friday’s loss at North Schuylkill were clearly evident — ballhandling and free-throw shooting.
After committing 37 turnovers in a 40-30 loss to Haven on Dec. 6, Tamaqua had 33 turnovers Monday. The Blue Raiders also shot just 12-for-25 from the foul line and had no outside shooting presence, going the entire game without one 3-point shot attempt.
“Ever since the first time around it’s been a point of emphasis,” Davis said of the turnovers. “Nobody wants to handle the ball and we are weak on many levels mentally and physically. We need to figure that out moving forward.
“I’m always a shot is better than a turnover mentality, but we can’t get a shot off if we turn the ball over every time. Even our defensive rebounds, we handed it right back to them.
“They swarmed us. Every rebound we weren’t strong with it, we didn’t pivot, we didn’t chin it, we didn’t do all the things that we practice every single day in practice. Nothing is carrying over.”
