District 3 girls' basketball: York Suburban earns silver with senior leader sidelined
Monday's semifinal win over Northern York was painful for York Suburban.
The Trojans lost senior leader Alyssa Dougherty at the end of the third quarter with a broken arm. She landed awkwardly and the arm broke when an opponent landed on her.
Coach Jess Weaver said she knew the arm was broken as soon as she saw it.
"It wasn't through the skin, but you could see the break," she said. "She worked so hard to come back from the ACL injury last year [when she missed more than half the season]. It's hard for us to replace 10 points and 10 rebounds a game. But it's more than that, she is the heart and soul of this team."
That was evident by the T-shirts her teammates wore during warmpups with her name and number on the back.
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Like last year, Janay Rissmiller was going to have to pick up the scoring slack against Greencastle-Antrim in Thursday's District 3 Class 5A girls' final. She didn't quite hit her scoring average of 13 points, finishing with nine points in the Trojans' 44-30 loss.
Weaver was amazed Rissmiller could play at all. Sometime during Monday's semifinal, Rissmiller cracked the nail on one of her big toes. Wednesday, the nail was removed.
Although she was having trouble walking, and needed a bigger shoe to play in Thursday's final, sitting out wasn't an option.
"It's been my dream to play here for myself," she said. "It helped tremendously that I had been through this last year, and it carried over to this year."
Weaver refused to use the injuries as an excuse. "They went to man defense, and we couldn't finish," she said.
What this means
Thursday added a page to York Suburban's girls' basketball history books. It was the first time the Trojans played for a district title.
The No. 6 seed in the tournament, York Suburban went on an impressive run to reach the program's first district title game. In fact, the Trojans had never reached the semifinals before this season. Suburban upset No. 3 seed Manheim Central (44-40) and No. 2 seed Northern York (38-33) to make the final.
Weaver believes they can add at least one more page to that history book, when they host a PIAA first-round game next week.
"We have never won a state playoff game," she said. "We have a chance to change that."
Falling into a hole
The Trojans got off to a slow start against top-seeded Greencastle. It started from the tip. York Suburban won the tip, and immediately turned the ball over with a backcourt violation.
Suburban trailed 11-0 early before Lydia Powers put York Suburban on the scoreboard with a drive to the hoop. They cut the deficit to 14-6 at the end of the first quarter.
The Trojans trailed by nine at halftime and by eight with 3:03 left in the third quarter, but the Blue Devils had an answer for every run. Suburban also struggled with foul trouble throughout the contest.
It was Greencastle's second District 3 title and first since 2015.
Key stats
Rissmiller led the Trojans, who had no players in double digits. Powers finished with eight points.
Greencastle was led by Haley Noblit, who scored from the paint, the free-throw line and beyond the arc to finish with 19 points. Rylee Henson added a dozen, including three 3s.
They said it
Jess Weaver: "We started a senior, junior and three sophomores. Sophia [Redman] really stepped up, starting for Alyssa. This season is a program changer for us. First time in a final. We didn't win, but we get to keep playing. We'll just have to make history another way."
What's next?
As the District 3 runner-up, York Suburban will play in the western part of the PIAA bracket. The Trojans will open the state playoffs March 11 against the District 7 sixth-place finisher.
Shelly Stallsmith covers high school sports for GameTimePA through the York Daily Record. Connect with her via email at mstallsmith@ydr.com or on Twitter: @ShelStallsmith.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: District 3 girls' basketball: Greencastle-Antrim tops York Suburban
