By Andrew Koob
New Castle News

The Shenango girls basketball team is looking for some momentum with a tough upcoming schedule.

A nonsection win over Union — its third victory in as many games — is a good start.

The Wildcats (11-7) held off an upstart Lady Scots’ squad to secure a 48-44 victory last night.

“Any game right now that you win is huge,” Shenango coach Brian Turk said. “You want to go into the playoffs with good momentum and that’s what were trying to do here.”

Angelina Sibeto paced Shenango with 17 points, followed by Samantha Seaburn’s 14 points.

Skylar Thompson tallied a game-high 23 points, while Sarah Seamans totaled 14 markers.

Union, after trailing by eight points in the second half, took the lead with a 17-7 third-quarter advantage.

“We’ve gotten a lot better obviously,” Union coach Larry Ondako said. “These girls, they’re learning. I think the game is starting to slow down for them, we’re just not at that level yet. We got off to a pretty bad start, so we had our chance early and didn’t make much of it. Then we settled down and started playing our game.”

Shenango responded in the final eight minutes, using a 16-10 fourth quarter spurt to take the victory.

The Lady Scots (2-16) only had three players score in Thompson, Seamans and Tyanna Harris, who totaled seven points. Ondako knows it’s a learning process for his team, which has improved as the season has progressed.

“They just can’t do it right now,” Ondako said. “They’ll be able to do it, they’re young. It’s not like I have four seniors out there who can’t do it, but they’ll learn. We’re just trying to get better and we’ve certainly done that over the course of the past two months.

The Wildcats now prepare for the home stretch of the regular season with three tough section games. They’ll face Beaver Falls today, followed by Neshannock and Mohawk next week.

Shenango currently holds the fourth and final Section 1-AA playoff spot with a 5-4 section record.

“This week and next week makes or breaks the season,” Turk said. “We’d have to win two to have a better record than them. It’d be tough to win two in a row like that. Our goal is to win all three, but Beaver Falls first tomorrow.”