Wallace, Dallas beat Berwick, keep alive hope for girls basketball title

SALEM TWP. — Hanging around the perimeter, Deanna Wallace saw some space, weighed her options and figured, why not?

So she kept tossing up 3-pointers, again and again.

And partly because of it, Dallas still has an outside shot at a league title.

Wallace scored 11 points in an explosive third quarter Monday, Lauren Charlton knocked down five 3-point field goals and Dallas burned Berwick, 57-36 in a battle of two teams trying to stay in the running for a Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 championship.

“I just thought there was the opportunity,” said Wallace, who scored 16 points. “I might as well take it.”

Her hot shooting helped Dallas take off in the second half, as the Mountaineers turned a game that was tied two minutes before intermission into a commanding 46-34 lead by the end of the third quarter.

Dallas coasted from there while improving to 8-2 in the WVC Division 1, right on the heels of 9-1 Hazleton Area and a game out of first place in the division. The two will meet for the second time this season Monday in Dallas, after Hazleton Area won the first showdown between the two.

“We’re not giving up on anything,” Dallas coach Kelly Johnson said. “We feel like we can be competitive with anybody in our division. The Hazleton loss wasn’t pretty. We think it’ll be more competitive (Monday). We have high hopes to accomplish great stuff for the remainder of the season.”

The victory over Berwick also crept the Mountaineers closer to the WVC playoffs for an overall league title, as the Division 1 and Division 2 champions and the second-place finisher in each division will enter the four-team tourney.

Dallas gained a two-game lead over Berwick, which fell two games behind the Mountaineers and to 6-4 with four conference games remaining — meaning it’ll be difficult for the Bulldogs to recover in time to make the WVC tourney.

They tried to recover a couple times Monday.

Berwick fell behind 10-6 at the start, but Morgan Nevel’s three-point play closed the gap to a point late in the opening quarter.

Dallas built a nine-point lead in the second quarter behind Charlton’s four 3-pointers in the first half. But Renny Murphy reeled off five consecutive points to get the Bulldogs within a bucket, and Jackie Nevel provided that tying basket with a 15-foot jumper to even things at 22-22 with two minutes to play in the second quarter.

The Mountaineers took off from there.

Nadia Evanosky came off the bench with four points as Dallas scored six straight to end the opening half, then extended its run to 11 straight points for a 34-22 lead when Charlton drilled her fifth trey and Wallace followed with a three-point play in the opening minutes of the third quarter.

“They were starting to draw in on her a lot,” Wallace said of her high-scoring teammate Charlton, who finished with a game-high 19 points. “So coach just said we have other opportunities.”

Wallace made the most of hers.

She popped a couple of 3-pointers, hit two regular baskets and added a free throw in the third quarter as the Mountaineers grew their six-point halftime lead to 46-34 with a quarter to play.

“She has the green light to take those shots,” Johnson said, “as do other players on this team. They (the Bulldogs) marked Lauren up for a little bit after she hit those 3-point shots — not for long, but they were in a triangle-and-two for a little while on her. So why not let her (Wallace) continue to take those shots when she’s open.

“She was feeling it tonight.”

Now, the Mountaineers feel like they’re right in the hunt with a chance to win at least a division championship down the homestretch of the WVC season.

“I think we do,” Wallace said. “If we just keep up our defense and just make sure we know what our objective is, I think we can get there.”

Dallas 57, Berwick 36

DALLAS (57) — Morgan MacNeely 2 0-2 5, Haley Habrack 2 1-4 5, Bella Hill 0 2-4 2, Lauren Charlton 6 2-2 19, Deanna Wallace 6 1-1 16, Victoria Spaciano 1 0-0 2, Emily Weiland 1 0-2 2, Nadia Evanosky 1 2-2 4, Julia Kocher 1 0-0 2, Audrey DelGaudio 0 0-0 0, Julia Sciandra 0 0-0 0. Totals 20 8-17 57.

BERWICK (36) — Renny Murphy 2 2-2 7, Morgan Nevel 1 1-1 3, Sarah Steeber 2 2-7 7, Katie Starr 5 3-4 13, Emily Ouimet 1 0-1 2, Rachel Whitenight 0 0-0 0, Jackie Nevel 2 0-0 4, Emilee Andreas 0 0-0 0, Sadie Zehner 0 0-0 0. Totals 13 8-15 36.

Dallas`13`15`18`11 — 57

Berwick`12`10`12`2 — 36

Three-point goals — DAL 9 (Charlton 5, Wallace 3, MacNeely); BER 2 (Murphy, Steeber).