Seward 61

Tri-Valley 38

FLORIDA -- The Section 9 Class C girls quarterfinal produced better game results for Tri-Valley but No. 1 seed S.S. Seward remained in control with a 23-point, 61-38 victory.

The win for the Spartans propelled them into the championship game against Millbrook last night at Middletown High School.

Millbrook defeated Pine Plains Tuesday night at Millbrook, 63-22.

The Bears entered Tuesday's game with the past reminder of their 71-21 loss to S.S. Seward on February 21 at Tri-Valley in the final league game for both teams.

That game produced a strong response by Tri-Valley Coach Gary Ter Bush who said that game, “Was our worst performance of the year,” and he suggested prior to the start Tuesday night that “we will play better tonight.”

Defensively Tri-Valley Tuesday night produced a much better game holding the league-leading, high-scoring Alexa Roach to 17 points compared to the final league game at Tri-Valley when she pounded the nets for 30 points.

Coach Ter Bush said, “I'm proud of them and they put up a good fight but we missed a ton of shots and had too many bad passes and turnovers.”

“We were getting a lot of open shots but probably connected on 30 percent of them and if we shot 50 percent itwould have been a different game. Seward is a great team and you can't take that away from them,” Ter Bush added.

S.S. Seward Coach Joe DiMattina was not happy with the win as he was critical of his team's defense, calling it “soft defense” saying “we didn't want to play defense.” He described soft defense as “when we tried to go for a steal and didn't get it and that happened way too many times in this game.”

Coach DiMattina indicated that the 61 points his team scored, “was great but when we play a better team that can score I don't know if we can score 61.”

From the opening tip off Seward took a 9-3 lead in the first eight minutes of play and it wasn't until the 5:02 mark on the clock that the Bears Jordan Carmody cashed in on a three-pointer.

The offensive power of the Spartans pushed them to a 25-12 first quarter lead and a 38-17 halftime lead.

The second half of play offensively produced better scoring for Tri-Valley as the Bears outscored Seward 12-10 in the third quarter and tied the Spartans 11-11 in the final eight minutes of play.

Turnovers played a major part of this game with Tri-Valley committing 27 to Seward's 19.

Leading scorers for S.S. Seward were freshman guard Shannon Sgombick with 19 points off nine two pointers and one foul shot and senior guard Alexa Roach with 17 points off eight deuces and one foul shot.

Scoring honors for Tri-Valley went to senior forward Victoria Swett with 17 points off three treys and four two-pointers.