The big story: Palmyra defeated Hamburg 53-33 in the District 3-AAA girls' basketball Round of 16 on Wednesday night. Since the Cougars (20-3) are the No. 2 seed in the tournament, that result is not much of a surprise, but it is impressive considering Carly Richardson, Palmyra's leading scorer, did not play after spraining her ankle in practice. Palmyra will play No. 10 West Perry, a 47-35 winner over Middletown, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Milton Hershey in the quarterfinals.
Key sequence: One minute into the third quarter, Hamburg (15-9) was still within 24-22. Over the next four minutes, Palmyra had an 11-0 run that put the home team up for double digits the rest of the way. During that stretch, the Hawks had five turnovers and five fouls, while Palmyra had none of either.
On the scoreboard: Molly Gundermann came off the bench to score 13 points, tops for the Cougars. She had three 3-point baskets. Josie Stoval scored nine, and both Katie McClellan and Kristen Smoluk had eight in the win. For Hamburg, Kassidy Lesher scored 14 points, and had an opportunity for an even bigger night but went 2-for-11 from the free throw line.
Hustle points: McClellan was everywhere for Palmyra, pulling in a game-high 12 rebounds and drawing two charges. Stoval also had eight boards for the Cougars, who outrebounded the Hawks 35-28. Lesher had 11 boards for Hamburg. Hamburg turned the ball over 23 times, while Palmyra gave it away on 12 occasions.
What they're saying: "We played with a real sense of urgency. Sometimes you're lucky too, because it was a good matchup for us, except for the big girl [Lesher]. The speed matchups were good." - Palmyra head coach Ron Berman
"We were just coming off of that very bad Hershey loss, when none of us came together. We came here knowing we should play together. We had been working for two weeks and we were ready." - Palmyra's Katy McClellan
"We knew coming in we couldn't turn the ball over. We could have done a better job of that. ... In the second half, the press go to us a little bit and created easy baskets." - Hamburg head coach Mike Garman
Rapid reaction: A year ago, Palmyra had to win two District 3 playoff games with Richardson injured, and the Cougars did beat Eastern York in the quarterfinals and Gettysburg in the semifinals before she came back for the championship game. This case was a little different. The games in 2013 were not elimination games. This one was. Without Richardson, Palmyra won a must-win game with an all-underclassman starting lineup. Whether or not Richardson is ready to play on Saturday, that is an encouraging sign for the Courgars.