Mar. 10—WINDBER — Windber couldn’t have asked for a better three minutes to open its District 5 Class 2A girls’ basketball semifinal contest Tuesday night against visiting Conemaugh Township.
The top-seeded Ramblers used tenacious pressure defense and physical inside play to storm out to a 14-0 lead, setting the tone for the rest of the game that saw Windber roll to a 59-31 win and earn the opportunity to face Tussey Mountain in Friday’s district championship at a site and time to be determined.
This marks the fourth consecutive District 5 title game for the Ramblers (18-1), who last captured the gold medal in 2018, also against Tussey Mountain.
“We talked about how important it was to get off to a good start,” said Windber coach Cory Pavlosky. “We came out with no sluggishness and no excuses. We got a little flustered in the second quarter, but then we settled in and did what we had to do to get a win.”
Junior guard Gina Gaye scored a game-high 18 for the Ramblers, while senior forward Amanda Cominsky was a force at both ends of the floor with
16 points and 16 rebounds.
“It feels good, we’re excited to be back and able to play,” said Cominsky. “The biggest thing was to not get cocky because we already beat them twice, and it’s very hard to beat a team three times in one season.”
The fourth-seeded Indians ended a 6-13 campaign.
“We’re a young team,” said Conemaugh Township coach Lisa Byer. “We have one senior and four sophomores that go out there and play hard every night. The press is something we knew we had to work on, but where we really struggled was rebounding. That was the real difference in the game.”
Sophomore guard Mya Poznanski led the Indians with nine points, while Township’s lone senior, Chloe Shaulis, finished with seven points and a team-high eight rebounds.
Cominsky came out on fire for the Ramblers, scoring eight of the first 12 Windber points.
Maeve Cullen’s 3-pointer was the first Indian field goal, and that pulled her team within 14-4 at the 3:52 mark. However, Windber closed the quarter on a 6-0 run capped off by Gaye’s putback that made it 21-6 heading into the second period.
Conemaugh Township then bounced back from what looked like an early knockout blow by rallying for eight unanswered points to open the second as a Poznanski 3-pointer and a steal and layup by Hannah Swank cut the deficit to 21-14 with 5:21 left in the half.
“We were able to get our press going and get some steals and buckets,” Byer said.
The Ramblers then regained the momentum by reeling off nine straight points highlighted by Gaye’s 3-pointer, and Windber later scored the last six points of the half, capped off by Samantha Horner’s layup that made it 36-16 at the break.
Windber steadily increased the advantage throughout the second half. The Ramblers scored nine of the last 11 points of the third quarter to take a commanding 52-24 lead into the fourth, and the Indians would get no closer than 25 the rest of the way.
“Tussey Mountain is a formidable opponent,” Pavlosky said. “We anticipate a hard-fought game for a full 32 minutes, and we’re going to have to crash the boards and play tough defense to come out with a championship.”
