Shady Side Academy had a one-point lead after halftime, but the Bulldogs couldn’t find a way to contain Loyalsock Township’s two big scorers.
Big in points and big in height.
Loyalsock’s Lacey Kriebel scored 23 points and Alaina Dadzie had 21 as the District 4 champion defeated Shady Side Academy, 55-43, in the PIAA Class 3A final Thursday at Giant Center.
Kriebel is a 5-foot-10 senior guard. Dadzie is a 6-1 junior forward. The two formed an inside-outside combination that scored 44 of the team’s 55 points.
“We knew that Dadzie inside was going to be a real matchup problem for us,” Shady Side Academy coach Jonna Burke said. “That was our focus and hoping that they’d have an off night shooting. But they didn’t.”
Kriebel went 5 for 9 from 3-point range, and Dadzie converted 9 of 14 shots from inside the arc.
“It was like pick your poison basically,” Shady Side Academy junior Karis Thomas said. “It was just a tough time.”
The state title was the first for Loyalsock (30-2) in its first appearance.
Shady Side Academy’s last lead of the game – 31-30 – came 18 seconds into the second half. Thomas led the Bulldogs (28-2) with 22 points.
A fourth-quarter scoring slump dashed Shady Side Academy’s hopes. A layup by Thomas cut Loyalsock’s lead to 44-41 early in the fourth, but the Bulldogs scored only one more basket in the finals seven minutes.
They were also limited by a dozen turnovers.
“We went on a drought at the absolute worst time of the game,” Burke said. “That just propelled them.”
Shady Side Academy was making its first appearance in Hershey. It was also the first for Burke, a coach who won more than 500 games in a career that included stints at Butler and Bethel Park.
This was her fourth year at Shady Side Academy.
“People don’t understand how hard it is to get to a state championships game,” Burke said, “and I can say that with perspective because I’ve been trying to do it for 30 years.”
The score was close throughout. Loyalsock led 14-13 after one quarter, 30-28 at halftime and 43-37 after three.
Thomas went 9 for 12 shooting from the field including 3 for 4 from 3-point range. But beyond her points, Shady Side Academy struggled to find much additional scoring.
Makiyah Mitchell and Leah Buford added eight points apiece.
“I think at times some of us passed up some shots that we could have taken to maybe get the ball in play a little bit more and not looked to Karis as much,” Burke said. “But she’s carried us. She’s gotten us here, so it’s natural to do that.”
A mid-February injury cost Shady Side Academy its second-leading scorer, 6-2 junior Cassie Sauer. Losing her hurt the team long before reaching the state finals, but her absence in the middle was obvious against a Loyalsock team with size.
“It’s natural to think about it,” Burke said. “You said, their 6-2 kid ate us up. If I have my 6-2 kid out there, could it have been different? You can’t not think about it, but we’ve been playing without her for five weeks now. We had to adjust.”
Holding a 44-41 lead, Loyalsock finished the fourth quarter on an 11-2 run. Dadzie and Kriebel combined to score eight of Loyalsock’s final 11 points.
“They just proved to be a deadly combination,” Burke said. “We literally switched defenses about four or five times. We never do that, but we had to.”