Northampton senior guard Kylie Gilliard got off to a blistering start and then junior forward/center Grace Lesko started rolling on Friday night in Allentown.
Gilliard scored eight points in the first quarter and ended up with 14 against Allentown Central Catholic. Lesko tallied 14 of her 16 points in the final three quarters for the Konkrete Kids.
Northampton earned a 44-38 victory over the Vikettes in a key Eastern Pennsylvania Conference West Division matchup.
“It depends how we start. Sometimes Kylie starts a little quicker, making some 3s,” Northampton coach Jeff Jacksits said. “Then, Grace will just let her go. Grace’s not going to yell and scream that she wants the ball when somebody else is hot. That’s how unselfish she is. But we knew inside, they were going to have a hard time matching her when she got the ball inside. She was doing a good job.”
Lesko is averaging 17.9 points per game and Gilliard has been scoring 10.4 points per game this season for Northampton.
“I love playing with Kylie,” Lesko said. “Kylie’s my shooter. She can hit her shots. Then, she always looks to give me the ball, which is great. And I look to give her the ball. We have that connection on the floor.”
Gilliard scored eight of the game’s first 10 points as the Konkrete Kids opened up a 10-0 lead when the senior connected on a corner 3-pointer with 3:24 left in the first quarter. The Vikettes charged right back, answering with a 10-0 run of their own, tying the game at 10 when junior forward Madi Szoke made a 3-pointer with 1:05 left in the first quarter.
“I think our defense got better,” Lesko said about how the Konkrete Kids fought off the Vikettes’ run. “We started playing better defense once they got back. Immediately had to be up on them and not let them get easy buckets.”
Lesko impresses
Senior forward Hanna Hoeing gave Central Catholic a 15-14 lead with 4:50 remaining in the second quarter when she rolled in a jumper.
Lesko had two consecutive putbacks to give the Konkrete Kids an 18-15 advantage with 2:32 left in the first half.
“She really did a good job penetrating the lane at the end there, making some short jump shots,” Jacksits said of Lesko. “Didn’t rely on her 3-point shot tonight much. I think she shot maybe one or two. But other than that, she did a great job. Her and Devyn (Demchak) did a pretty good job on the boards tonight, controlling those, which is key against Central because they usually can get in there and get some extra boards on the offensive end.”
“If we get to the baseline side, it’s a little easier because she doesn’t get over the top as much,” Allentown Central Catholic coach Mike Kopp said of Lesko. “If she gets that little angle on the inside, on the baseline, on either side, she’s almost impossible to stop.”
Vikettes senior forward Julia Roth put the home team ahead 21-20 with 5:28 left in the third quarter. Lesko then drove down the lane for a bucket and connected on a jumper off the dribble to give Northampton a three-point lead with 4:34 left in the third. Central Catholic sophomore guard Molly Driscoll tied the game 24-24 when she hit a 3-pointer with 2:52 remaining in the third quarter.
Junior guard Nicole Yellen put Northampton ahead 27-24 on a 3-pointer with 2:47 left in the third quarter. Yellen then beat the buzzer at the end of the third with a long 3-pointer to make the advantage 31-27.
Gilliard drove to the basket and scored to increase the Northampton lead to 35-27 with 6:29 remaining in regulation.
Szoke forced a steal and drove in for a layup to cut the Konkrete Kids’ lead to 39-36 with 1:10 left in the fourth quarter.
Gilliard scored 23 seconds later to push the advantage back to five points.
Hoeing made a jumper with 34 seconds left on the clock to trim the Northampton advantage to 41-38.
Senior guard Taylor Kanzley made two free throws for Northampton with 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter to make it a five-point lead and Yellen made one of two foul shots with nine seconds on clock to end the game.
5 players produce win
Yellen finished with seven points on the night for Northampton, which is ranked third by lehighvalleylive.com.
Senior Devyn Demchak added five points for the Konkrete Kids, who only played their starters on the night.
“It’s tiring, but I think our adrenaline is just so high when we’re playing the games, that we don’t even think about it,” Gilliard said about playing all 32 minutes. “After the game, it definitely hits us. But during the game, it’s just you’re on your high horse so you want to be playing. You want to work hard. You want to do everything you can to help your team win. So, we don’t really think about it too much.”
Hoeing led the Vikettes with 12 points.
Szoke finished with 11 points for Allentown Central Catholic, which fell to 14-4 on the season and dropped its second consecutive game.
Driscoll scored six points for the Vikettes, who are ranked fifth by lehighvalleylive.com.
“I give our kids a lot of credit,” Kopp said. “When you’re down by that much, a lot of teams would have quit. I’m proud of them. It’s a loss, but it’s just hopefully going to make us a little stronger. We haven’t been in a lot of these games, close games, in a while. This is going to help us, I think, overall, generally speaking when we hopefully get into the playoffs.”
The Konkrete Kids, who also beat Allentown Central Catholic 45-32 at home on Dec. 21, improved to 16-3 overall and 13-1 in EPC this season.
“It’s huge. It puts us in first place in our division,” Gilliard said. “Everyone likes to beat Central. It’s always a good win. It’s a tough win because it’s such an off-pace game. It’s slow and then it’s fast. It’s kind of hard to get into a rhythm. But I think we did that pretty good. We tried to keep our own tempo and play our game. It’s a really big win.”
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Josh Folck may be reached at jfolck@lehighvalleylive.com.
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