NEWBURGH – Defense has been a difference maker for the Delhi girls basketball team this season.
Saturday was no different, as the Bulldogs combined for 22 steals to beat Section IX’s Eldred, 51-29, in the Class D NYS Regional Championship and advance to next weekend’s state semifinals.
“Eldred is a very scrappy team, a very physical team,” Delhi head coach Todd Bruce said. “It took us a little while to adjust to some of what they were doing but I’m so proud of how this team responded and played.
“We knew we could force some things based on their ball-handling ability and we wanted to jump some passing lanes and we did just that.”
The win gives Delhi its second trip to the state semifinals in school history and its first since 1986.
“This one is a little sweeter, but just a little bit,” Delhi point guard Logan Bruce said when asked to compare this week’s regional championship to last week’s section crown. “We have our eyes set on something a little bigger than region champs but we’re super excited to be just the second team in our school’s history to ever make it this far.”
Logan Bruce finished with eight points, 10 assists and four steals.
The Bulldogs wasted no time picking up the defensive intensity, coming out in a full-court trap from the opening tip to try and bother Eldred.
The strategy worked, and Delhi forced the Yellow Jackets into 13 first-quarter turnovers on its way to a 14-10 lead after one quarter of play.
Even though they had a 4-point lead and their defense was frustrating Eldred, the Bulldogs missed countless offensive opportunities from in close early in the game, something coach Bruce said the team is going to need to fix.
“We just didn’t finish well early in that first quarter,” coach Bruce said. “Eventually we were able to get some easy baskets in transition, but we need to be better finishing in close.”
Delhi (22-2) found its rhythm in the second quarter, ripping off a 12-3 run before halftime to go into the break ahead, 26-13.
Junior forward Anna Post led the team in scoring for the second week in a row with 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds to finish just one rebound shy of a double-double.
Olivia Wakin was the Bulldogs’ second-leading scorer, netting 12 points.
Delhi kept up its defensive intensity in the third, holding Eldred to 6 points in the quarter and taking a 40-19 lead into the final quarter with the outcome all but decided.
The Yellow Jackets were led offensively by Alaina Gaughan. She scored a team-best 11 points, nine of which came in the first half.
Eldred’s Hailee Kolvenbach was the only other player on the team to score more than four points.
Delhi senior Kaitlynn Finch played a pivotal role in the win, scoring nine points and finishing with a team-best seven steals.
“We have athletes all around,” Finch said. “We have girls, from guards to forwards, that can defend and get the job done. We don’t just have one or two defenders, we have an entire team of girls that can defend and it makes everyone’s job easier.”
Next up for Delhi is Section VII champion Moriah. The Bulldogs face off against Moriah on Saturday at 12:30 p.m at Hudson Valley Community College in the NYS semifinals.
“Overall I think we played well enough to win in this one but it wasn’t our cleanest game ever,“ Logan Bruce said. “When you play against a scrappy team like Eldred they force you into mistakes, but if we’re going to accomplish what we want to we’ll need to continue to get better.”
to get more just visite: http://www.thedailystar.com/sports/delhi-smothers-eldred-advances-to-state-semifinals/article_9e48d4db-9b98-5a55-b01e-ecd523948849.html