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Troy knew they had a tall task in front of them Friday evening. They were playing the defending district champion and state quarter finalists Loyalsock Lady Lancers on their home floor. And, when Loyalsock hit two threes to start the game, it looked like it may be a rout.

Troy said no way. The Lady Trojans competed with the Lancers for all 32 minutes, slowing the Lancers’ pressure defense and battling well with inside stars Mia Patterson and Alliya Kennedy, but they came up short, 49-27, in the first round of the piaa district 4 girls’ class AAA quarterfinals at Ron Insinger gymnasium Friday evening.

“I’m very pleased with our effort. We knew it was going to be a huge challenge coming down here. ‘Sock has been a great team and a great program for a long time. And we were excited to come down and see if we could stick with them. I felt like we did for the first quarter and even into halftime. Our girls never quit but Loyalsock was a little better than us tonight and we came up on the short end,” Troy interim coach Curtis Miller said.

They sure didn’t quit. They responded to that early barrage from deep with a Mackenna Matthews three of her own, and cut the lead to three again with a Sydney Taylor basket to make it 8-5. But, two more Grace Baylor threes, her 2nd and 3rd of the quarter, extended the Lancer lead to 14-5. After Loyalsock added a foul shot, Katie Lackey scored to end the scoring of the first quarter and Troy trailed 15-7.
Patterson scored the first three points of the 2nd quarter on a bucket and one possession later a foul shot, but Alyssa Parks knocked down a three to make it 18-10. A Patterson foul shot was followed by another Patterson basket, before Parks scored two of her own. A converted and-one situation by Kennedy helped Loyalsock balloon their lead, and two Riley French foul shots at the end of the quarter gave us our halftime score, 28-15.

Lancer coach Curtis Jacobson was not happy with his team’s effort in the first half and challenged them at halftime.

“We got after them at halftime. We weren’t thrilled with our defensive effort in the first half. We were very unhappy with our rebounding in the first half. So there are two things that we talked about and credit to the girls they responded and in the second half they did the two things I thought we really struggled with. We did a heck of a lot better in the second half. It just changed the flow of the game,” Jacobson said.

Loyalsock came out on fire in the third quarter and scored 11 of the first 13 points of the quarter to extend the lead to 37-17 as Patterson started to assert herself in the paint.

Troy would try to chip into the Lancer lead the rest of the game, but to no avail. Senior captain Sydney Taylor scored her two final scholastic points with a round of applause from her fans and teammates with 3:14 left, but it wasn’t enough as Loyalsock ended Troy’s season 49-27.