Blue Devil girls grab 5th place in District 3 5A

By Ed Gotwals on 3/4/22

 

GREENCASTLE — It was the Mia Libby Show in Greencastle on Friday night.

 

Mia Libby

 

Libby scored a career-high 24 points and added 3 assists and 3 steals to carry Greencastle-Antrim to a 45-29 victory over Twin Valley to claim fifth place in the District 3 Class 5A girls basketball playoffs.

 

“Mia played her best game of the season,” G-A coach Mike Rhine said. “She shot the ball like we saw her shoot it in the summer — this was a breakout game for her.”

 

Libby connected on five 3-pointers and Haley Noblit (14 points, 3 assists, 5 steals) added another two.

The Blue Devils (21-4) will play Wednesday in the first round of the PIAA Tournament against the District 11 or District 4 champion on the road. Twin Valley (16-10) will face the District 2 champion.

 

Greencastle held a 21-18 lead at halftime, but the advantage quickly got better.

 

“We played our trap defense in the first half, but the girls wanted to play man-to-man,” Rhine said. “I wanted to stick with the trap to stay out of foul trouble. But when we switched to man, we really locked them up. They got hardly any looks at the basket.”

 

The Raiders scored only 11 points in the second half as G-A pulled away. Greencastle shot only 7-for-27 in the first half, but shot better in the second half.

 

Rhine said, “We could  have been up by a lot more in the first half but we missed on a lot of good looks.”

 

Rylee Henson came up with 2 assists, 3 rebounds and 2 steals for G-A and Lauren Pool scored 5 points in her last home game.

 

“It was an emotional game for Lauren, and you knew the other girls wanted to send her off in style,” Rhine said. “She’s been wonderful for us for the last four years.”