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ROCKY RIVER, OH – There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, or a face without a smile on it if you were there for the Maroon and White as it was Senior Night at Rocky River for the girls basketball program tonight led by head coach, Jamey Pfahl. It was a happy one as the Pirates defeated visiting GLC rival Valley Forge 53-29. The Pirates were led by senior, Ava Patti who scored 26 of the Pirate points.
Rocky River also received scoring from seniors Mackenzie Russell with 6, Lenore Wright with 6 while Maria Pfahl had 3 and Maeve Kelly with a very special 2 points. We’ll get to that in a bit. Kylie Crane would have scored in the fourth but was robbed by a rubber rim that rolled out the wrong way this time. As for the Valley Forge Patriots, they were led by Mikayla Hoang with 8 and Taylor Patrick had 7. Cloe Rzeczyck, Gracie Kercher and Laci Gantt each had 4 while Jada Plum had a very special 2 points, more on that later.
The game started off a bit slow, as Senior nights typically do because of the emotion involved and, in most cases, playing all the seniors at once, may not be a normal thing. That was the case as Valley Forge jumped out to a 6-3 lead with 5:14 left in the quarter. Ava Patti went to work from there scoring 5 of her teams next 6 points as the Pirates took a slim 9-8 lead after one.
The Pirates got back into form in the second with incredible defense, creating offense. The Patriots scored only 2 baskets the entire quarter, the first, and the last. The first, a free layup for Jada Plum, and the final one, a perfectly placed three pointer from Patrick. The 19 points in the middle of those two buckets, came from Rocky River in a dominant quarter. Patti had 9 in the quarter while Russell had 6.
Ironically enough, the biggest basket of the quarter came in the beginning when injured senior Maeve Kelly checked in to get her layup to a standing ovation. Kelley is a great teammate and it was a great moment to see such a hard worker, get one last moment in the sun despite the injury. This was set up by the free shot from Plum, to make sure things stayed even in the exchange.
The big second quarter helped the Pirates come out to a 28-13 lead to start the second half. For the first 7 minutes and 30 seconds of the third quarter, the game was dead even back and forth until Patti scored 7 points in 30 seconds, with 5 of those 7 coming in the final 3 seconds to hand River a dominant 44-23 lead. It was Patti doing her best Reggie Miller routine as she nailed a drive to the hoop to score with 2.8 seconds left, before stealing the inbound pass and scoring again by nailing a three as the buzzer went off. It was truly a special moment, for a special player.
The Pirates went on to roll from there for the senior night win. Kee On Sports will return to River this Saturday as they host the Westlake Lady Demons.
