In a Laurel Highlands cross-sectional matchup, B-A’s boys and girls basketball teams swept Central Cambria last week.
Friday night, the Blue Devils hosted Central Cambria in a nail-biter. Bellwood held off a second half comeback by Central Cambria and won 50-44. The Blue Devils improve to 5-14, but remain outside of the playoff picture.
Bellwood jumped out to an early lead and held it for the rest of the first half. The Blue Devils also battled foul trouble all game totaling 16 personal fouls.
The first quarter was close, but the Blue Devils got the edge and led by 4 points. Both teams were able to limit scoring runs in the first half and make it a back and forth game. Bellwood kept it going and grew their lead by a couple more in the second quarter.
The Blue Devils led 25-18 at halftime.
Bellwood was on a mission to grow their lead out of the break. The Blue Devils were up by as much as 11 points in the third quarter.
B-A was lead by Holden Schreier, Conner Bardell, and Anthony Caracciolo, who all reached double digits with 20, 12, and 10 points respectively.
The Blue Devils held onto their lead in the fourth quarter and won by a margin of 6 points.
The boy’s next game is Monday against Forest Hills.
Also on Friday, the Lady Blue Devils took on the Central Cambria Lady Red Devils in a game that went back and forth all night. B-A used a big third quarter to come out on top of the Red Devils, 62-56.
In the first half of this game, both teams got into some foul trouble. There was a combined 23 fouls between the teams in the first half, and the teams shot a total of 55 fouls shots in the game.
In the first quarter, the game was kept close, but a 3 point shot from Olivia Hess at the end of the quarter gave Bellwood the edge, 16-14 after one.
Bellwood used this momentum, and started the second quarter on a run. They were able to extend their lead to 27-19 before Central Cambria went on a run of their own. The Red Devils went on an 11-2 run to close the quarter, and entered halftime with a one point, 30-29 lead over Bellwood.
The Lady Blue Devils, upset that they gave up their lead, knew they had to come out strong in the third quarter.
It didn’t take long before B-A reclaimed the lead, and never looked back. The Lady Blue Devil’s offense was hot, and put up 17 points in the third quarter. Senior, Chloe Hammond was a big part of B-A’s scoring success, as she drained three 3 pointers. Bellwood’s defense stepped up as well. They held Central Cambria to just six points in the quarter, and gave themselves a comfortable 46-36 lead to close out the third.
Bellwood was lead by Lilly Gerwert and Chloe Hammond with 18 and 14 points respectively.
The fourth quarter was a shootout with a combined 36 points in the period. The Lady Blue Devils stayed in front and closed out the game up by 6 points.
The girl’s next game is Monday at Huntingdon.
