Villa Maria ends Lady Warriors’ season
Rob Burchianti | Herald-Standard
Elizabeth Forward’s Anna Resnick heads up court after making a steal against Villa Maria during Saturday’s PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University’s McComb Field House. Resnick came off the bench to score 10 points but the Lady Warriors lost, 55-45.
Rob Burchianti | Herald-Standard
Elizabeth Forward’s Bri Spirnak sinks a 3-pointer against Villa Maria during Saturday’s PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University’s McComb Field House. Spirnak scored a game-high 21 points but the Lady Warriors lost, 55-45.
Rob Burchianti | Herald-Standard
Elizabeth Forward’s Bailie Brinson (35) puts up a shot over Villa Maria’s Kelley McKnight (44) during Saturday’s PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University’s McComb Field House.
Elizabeth Forward's Juria Flournoy (23) defends against Villa Maria's Ava Waid during Saturday's PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University's McComb Field House.
Rob Burchianti | Herald-Standard
Elizabeth Forward’s Julia Jenkins corrals a loose ball against Villa Maria during Saturday’s PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University’s McComb Field House.
Rob Burchianti | Herald-Standard
Elizabeth Forward’s Bri Spirnak (10) is the Herald-Standard All-Area Girls Basketball Team’s Class 4-A Player of the Year.
Elizabeth Forward's Juria Flournoy darts through Villa Maria's defense during Saturday's PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University's McComb Field House.
Elizabeth Forward's Julia Jenkins (2) defends Villa Maria's Hannah Labonte (11) during Saturday's PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University's McComb Field House.
Elizabeth Forward's (from left) Anna Resnick, Juria Flournoy, Bri Spirnak and Bailie Brinson all dart up court as teammate Julia Jenkins comes up with a steal against Villa Maria during Saturday's PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University's McComb Field House.
Elizabeth Forward's Bri Spirnak puts in a scoop shot against Villa Maria during Saturday's PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game at Edinboro University's McComb Field House. Spirnak scored a game-high 21 points in the Lady Warriors' 55-45 loss.
Rob Burchianti | Herald-Standard
Elizabeth Forward coach Krystal Gibbs urges her team on during a timeout in Saturday’s PIAA Class AAAA first-round playoff game against Villa Maria at Edinboro University’s McComb Field House.
Elizabeth Forward coach Krystal Gibbs enters her fifth season as coach of the Lady Warriors.
EDINBORO — Elizabeth Forward hung right with District 10 champion Villa Maria Academy for three quarters in their PIAA Class AAAA girls basketball playoff game Saturday.
The fourth quarter proved to be the Lady Warriors’ undoing, though, as the Victors pulled away in the final minutes for a 55-45 first-round win over EF at Edinboro University’s McComb Field House.
Addisyn Cross scored seven of her team-high 13 points from the foul line in the fourth quarter as Villa Maria (21-3) converted on 13 of 18 free throw attempts over the final eight minutes to secure the win.
Bri Spirnak tossed in a game-high 21 points with two 3-pointers and had 17 rebounds as she and fellow senior starters Julia Jenkins, Juria Flournoy and Haylee Briggs played their final game for EF.
“I’m proud of them,” Lady Warriors coach Krystal Gibbs said. “This is a good group of kids, talented, hard-working. I’m lucky to have had them for four years. We didn’t win the game but they didn’t quit. I think they played well. We had some chances. We were up for a little while.
“This season, I can’t be happier. You’re in the WPIAL semis, you’re here in the state playoffs. Our last two losses were to North Catholic and Villa Maria Academy so we already knew what we were up against coming into this. They tried. We just were on the wrong end of it tonight.”
The Lady Warriors (17-9) were on the wrong end of the score for most of the game against Villa Maria, which is from nearby Erie, but kept battling and finally wrested the lead from the Victors in the third period.
Jenkins’ 3-pointer tied it, 31-31, with four minutes left in the third and Spirnak’s basket gave EF its first lead, 33-31, with 3:09. Hannah Kelly’s 3-pointer and a bucket by Ava Waid put Villa Maria up 36-33.
Anna Resnick hit a jump shot off a steal by Jenkins and Spirnak scored with an offensive rebound in the final seconds to put EF up 37-36 with one period to play.
The Victors’ Kelley McKnight and Spirnak traded baskets at the start of the fourth quarter but McKnight, who totaled 10 points in the game, scored once more to put her team ahead 40-39 and it never trailed again.
Villa Maria’s next 12 points over a span of 4:20 all came from the foul line. Spirnak became visibly frustrated during the stretch after she turned the ball over a couple times when she thought she had been fouled, and voiced her opinion to the officials.
Gibbs defended her 6-foot-1 forward.
“She was upset,” Gibbs said. “There were multiple times where I felt the refs were not calling the game fairly, and there was a point where I said I know we’re not from here, I get it, but this is not OK.
“Refs don’t lose the game for you. We had some opportunities we didn’t take advantage of. But that contributes.”
The Victors outscored EF 19-8 in the fourth period with Spirnak accounting for six of the Lady Warriors’ points and Flournoy for the other two.
Spirnak and freshman Bailie Brinson scored five points apiece in the opening quarter which ended with a 3-pointer by Cross to give Villa Maria at 14-10 lead.
Anna Resnick hit a jump shot to pull Elizabeth Forward with 14-12 early in the second quarter before Rachel Majewski, who tallied all 11 of her points in the first half, made consecutive 3-pointers to spark a 10-point Villa Maria run for a 24-12 advantage.
Undaunted, the Lady Warriors fired right back with a nine-point run sparked by Resnick, who sank a 3-pointer and three of four foul shots, and capped by Spirnak’s 3-pointer to make it 24-21.
Resnick, a sophomore, followed Spirnak in the EF scoring column with 10 points.
“To see a young kid come out in a state game off the bench and be able to contribute the way she did, her future is bright,” Gibbs said of Resnick.
Jenkins nailed a 3-pointer not longer after to pull the Lady Warriors within 26-24, and Spirnak grabbed an offensive rebound and scored as time ran out to slice the gap to 28-27 at halftime.
Besides Spirnak and Resnick, the rest of EF’s points came from Jenkins and Brinson, who had six apiece, and Flournoy who had two.
Brinson was held to one point after the first period, but Gibbs wasn’t down on her talented underclassmen.
“It was tough in the interior against them and also I think we forget that Bailie is a freshman coming into a state playoff game,” Gibbs said. “She tried and played hard.”
While Gibbs will say goodbye to six seniors, including Seneca Thompson and Alyssa Brinson, she’s already upbeat about next season’s roster, which in addition to Bailie Brinson and Resnick also will include junior Abigail Bickerton and freshman Haven Briggs who contributed valuable minutes off the bench, and a slew of other promising underclassmen.
“We have all these kids that are coming back and then I have a nice eighth-grade class coming in,” said Gibbs with a smile. “So a couple weeks off, I already got their names and numbers, we’ll be back at it again with a new group of girls.”