By Scott Dudinskie
The Daily Item
SUNBURY -- Lauren Onesi put her hand in the cookie jar and held it for a beat as her shot dropped through the net.
A jolt of electricity surged through the Shikellamy Field House, the kind that comes when the second of consecutive 3-pointers puts the home team ahead in a hard-fought game. Danville coach Steve Moser had to call time and try to stem the Braves' momentum.
It was a timeout well-spent.
Shikellamy didn't score again -- not the rest of the third quarter nor at all in the fourth; an agonizing span of 9 minutes, 34 seconds -- and the Ironmen pulled away late to win 38-30 and deal the Braves' playoff hopes a punishing blow.
"The second half I thought we did a phenomenal job on the boards; we limited them to one shot and got a lot of deflections," said Steve Moser. "And just the couple times we put the press on, I thought it rattled them a little bit."
Onesi's back-to-back treys, her third and fourth of the game, put Shikellamy ahead 30-27 with 1:34 to play in the third period. The Braves shot 0-for-10 from that point to game's end and pulled just one offensive rebound. They also committed five fourth-quarter turnovers, three in a row in the middle of period as Danville went from one point down to four ahead (34-30).
Maddy Moser, who missed a pair of foul shots early in the fourth and another with 58 seconds to play, buried four straight in the final 20 seconds to ice it.
"It took a couple shots and then I was getting it," said Maddy Moser, who led Danville with 13 points Friday.
Danville (13-5) won its fourth in a row to keep pace with Shamokin in the HAC-I race, one game behind the division-leading Indians at 9-2. After a game Tuesday at Milton, the Ironmen close the regular season against division contenders Selinsgrove (8-3) and Shamokin (10-1).
Shikellamy (8-11, 6-5) must win out to qualify for the district playoffs. The Braves face a pair of playoff-bound teams next week in archrival Selinsgrove and Montoursville. They last missed districts in 2003-04.
With Shikellamy playing for its postseason life, Danville walked into a bit of a hornet's nest. The Braves' aggressive zone forced a couple early turnovers and some quick shots. The Ironmen didn't get on the board until Montanah James fed Siobhan Bross on a cut to the bucket at the 4:34 mark of the first. That sparked a string of five straight scores, including consecutive 3-pointers by Moser and Rachael Herman, for an 11-5 lead.
Danville senior Taryn Beaver came off the bench to hit three straight shots at the start of the second quarter to keep the margin at six (17-11).
Braves coach Lew Dellegrotti, who pleaded for dribble penetration from his team throughout the first quarter, got it in the second. It paid off in points on four straight turns, highlighted by Cory Yerger's 3-point play, for an 8-0 run and the lead. Danville scored one bucket over the last 5 1/2 minutes of the half, and Shik was scoreless over the final 2:53 for a 19-all halftime tie.
Onesi, who scored a game-high 14, got hot in the third. She opened the period with a trey from the left corner on an Alexis Angstadt kick-out, and put the Braves up 30-27 with 1:34 left with two in a row.
"If you leave her alone, she's one of the purest shooters in the league. We lost her a couple times earlier and she burned us every time," said Steve Moser. "But we did a better job getting on her in the fourth and didn't give her any open looks. Everything was contested."
The Ironmen endured another drought, stuck on 27 points for nearly seven minutes bridging the last two quarters. They had five of their 16 turnovers in that stretch.
"Towards the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth, we were starting to make bad passes," said Maddy Moser. "It was getting too fast, so we called a couple timeouts just to calm down."
Bross scored off a steal to pull Danville within a point with 4:20 left. She then rebounded her own miss and passed to Kylie Romeo for a go-ahead 3-pointer in the midst of Shik's turnover binge.
Bross finished with seven points and 10 rebounds.
"Kylie hit a great 3-pointer," said Steve Moser, "and Siobhan is just a bundle of energy."
