SL Girls’ Basketball Playoffs: Miller’s hot hand lifts Tamaqua past Williams Valley
Tamaqua's Kolbe Robb delivers a pass during Saturday's Schuylkill League girls' basketball quarterfinal against Williams Valley at Martz Hall. The Blue Raiders beat the Vikings 41-36 (Photo by Danie Mae Photography).
POTTSVILLE — Kendle Miller is Tamaqua’s best 3-point shooter.
This season has been a struggle for the Blue Raiders’ junior guard, however, as she’s battled inconsistency and went into a shooting funk midway through the season.
When her team needed her the most, however, Miller came through in the clutch in Saturday’s Schuylkill League girls’ basketball quarterfinals.
Miller canned five 3-pointers and scored a season-high 15 points as the Blue Raiders downed Williams Valley 41-36 at Martz Hall.
The victory put Tamaqua (18-5) in the Schuylkill League semifinals for the second straight season. The Blue Raiders will face Division I champion North Schuylkill (17-5) for the third time this season Tuesday at Martz Hall.
“I’m super excited for her,” Tamaqua coach Erika Davis said of Miller. “She had a shooting slump in the middle of the season. She’s our best 3-point shooter and she didn’t hit a lot this year.
“Shooters shoot. We keep saying, ‘Short memory, get the next one.’ She had the hot hand tonight.”
Miller scored Tamaqua’s first nine points, all on 3-pointers in a 3-minute span of the first quarter. It was part of a game-opening run that saw the Blue Raiders take a 16-4 lead with 5:44 left in the second quarter.
“I came out confident in my shot,” said Miller, who entered the game having made 24-of-107 shots (22%) from 3-point range. “After I made my first one, I was confident that I would make some more.
“My teammates catch me when I’m open and they know I’m going to shoot it.”
Williams Valley (20-3), playing in the Schuylkill League playoffs for the first time, opened the game 1-for-13 from the field but found its range in the second quarter.
Quin Smeltz hit three 3-pointers of her own as part of a 15-5 run that sliced Tamaqua’s lead to 21-19 with 5:46 remaining in the third quarter.
“We had some good looks … we had some open looks, we just didn’t put them in,” Williams Valley coach Shane Zellers said of his team’s rough start. “We were worried about that. It was our first time playing here. Leaving the locker room, it was a ball of nerves.
“We were hoping they would go away and they did for Quin there. We had a couple of open looks. If we knock them down, it might be a different game.”
With their lead sliced to two, that’s when Miller and Tamaqua locked in their sights again.
Riding a trio of steals from Kolbe Robb and two more 3-pointers by Miller, the Blue Raiders answered with a 10-0 burst to build the margin back up to 31-19 with 3:30 left in the frame.
Robb scored all six of her points in the second half and was a force defensively applying pressure to Williams Valley’s guards.
“I think last year’s experience helped us at this point of the season this year,” Davis said. “Kolbe … she reads the defense really well. It was that competitive edge, that competitive attitude. We want another shot at North Schuylkill, and in order to do that we had to win tonight.”
There were two keys to Tamaqua’s success Saturday:
First, the Blue Raiders took care of the ball. While their 19 turnovers were a little above their 18.7 per game average, that total wasn’t in the 30s as it was in their losses to Schuylkill Haven and North Schuylkill earlier this season.
Second, Tamaqua hit its free throws, especially in the third quarter. The Blue Raiders were 12-of-19 (63%) from the line, including 5-for-6 in the third. During the regular season Tamaqua shot just 46% from the stripe.
“That’s been the name of the game all season with our turnovers and our foul shots,” Davis said. “We said that in the playoffs, those two things have got to improve or wins aren’t going to come by for us.
“When you win that category of turnovers, being on the plus side, and have a decent percentage of foul shots, you have a good chance to win.”
It was turnovers that plagued Williams Valley in Tamaqua’s 10-0 burst and the Vikings made two more down the stretch as they clawed their way into it.
Tamaqua’s lead stretched to 38-24 with 5:59 remaining before Mallory Miller scored eight of her 10 points in a 10-2 run that made it 40-34 with 1:11 left.
The Vikings, however, decided not to foul right away, letting 34 seconds tick off before Samantha Plasha hit 1-of-2 from the line. A bucket by Sage Smeltz, who had 10 points and eight rebounds, with 20 seconds accounted for the final score.
“We talked about (fouling). We wanted to look to foul a certain player,” Zellers said of the final minutes. “We had foul trouble … it ended up turning into a nightmare.”
Kendle Miller was Tamaqua’s only double-digit scorer, although Lauren Ligenza pulled down 13 rebounds.
North Schuylkill ousted Tamaqua 42-37 in last year’s league semifinals and won both of this year’s Schuylkill League Division I games, 61-45 and 44-39. Kendle Miller said the Raiders are ready for another shot.
“They beat us twice in the regular season and we really wanted to win today so we could play them again Tuesday and beat them,” Miller said.
