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Bartlett takes it to Metea Valley

Saturday started out as one of those nights coaches dread for the Bartlett girls basketball team.

But it ended with a convincing and dominating win.

Falling behind 8-2 early, the Hawks bounced back and controlled the final three quarters, defeating Metea Valley 59-39 in an Upstate Eight Valley game on Alumni Night at Bartlett.

The win kept the Hawks (10-8, 5-1) in second place in the Valley and quickly erased the memory of a 61-43 loss at Neuqua Valley on Friday in a first-place showdown.

“When you come out after a loss like that you just can’t get down,” said Bartlett senior Ally Giampapa, who had a team-high 17 points, 12 in the second half.

“You can’t think about the past. You just have to move forward and we have a lot left in front of us.”

Bartlett couldn’t do much to contain Metea Valley senior guard Jenny Voytell early on. She scored all of the Mustangs’ points in the first quarter as Metea (10-7, 2-4) held a 10-9 lead after eight minutes.

“We talked about her scoring potential and we lost her a little early on,” said Bartlett coach Denise Sarna of Voytell. “We worked harder on her after that and kept her silent. Shelly Lyjak worked really hard and did a nice job of defending her.”

Voytell did finish with a game-high 20 points but she was held scoreless in the second and third quarters.

“We can’t continue to ask Jenny to be our only scorer,” said Mustangs’ coach Kris Kalivas.

Bartlett took control of the game with aggressive defense and rebounding. The Hawks helped Metea commit 23 turnovers on the night and they held a 41-24 advantage on the boards. Bartlett had 19 offensive rebounds to Metea’s six.

“The things we try to focus on in practice we didn’t implement on the court,” said Kalivas. “We’re not playing very disciplined right now. We got stagnant after the first quarter and started to turn the ball over too much.”

Bartlett took the lead for good, 13-11, on an Ashley Johnson basket with 6:56 left in the second quarter. A Giampapa basket with 19 seconds left in the half gave the Hawks a 27-20 lead at the break, an advantage they extended to 41-20 with a 14-0 run to start the second half. Giampapa had 2 3-pointers in the run and Johnson (13 points) added one.

“We started out slow but coach called a timeout and settled us down,” said Giampapa, who added 6 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 assists. “One of the really good things about our team is that we can come together when we need to. But we need to work on coming out stronger.”

Kelly Harris added 10 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists for Bartlett, while Elizabeth Arco pulled down 11 boards. Lisa Logan added 7 points for the Mustangs, who were playing for the first time since Dec. 28.

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