Sports
Seneca Valley Falls in Season Finale, Looks Toward Playoffs
Screamin' Eagles drop fifth straight to Whitman, 56-34, with playoffs on the horizon.
It may not have been the final post-season tune-up that he was looking for, but Seneca Valley girls basketball coach Todd Bumgardner is keeping last night's 56-34 loss to Whitman in perspective.
"In the big scheme of things, this game doesn't really mean a whole heck of a lot," he said. "You want to play well, obviously, but we've got three days of practice and we'll get ready for [Quince Orchard] on Saturday."
The Screamin' Eagles found themselves down early and trailed at the break, 27-15, and never found a rhythm offensively. While Seneca (9-13) failed to reach the 50-point mark for the fifth straight game, there were still some offensive highlights that Bumgardner must be pleased with.
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Seneca's top two scorers each put up double-digit figures in the loss, giving fans something celebrate on an otherwise difficult-to-swallow home loss.
Junior Marissa Rakow led the Screamin' Eagles with 14 points last night while the team's leading scorer, junior Bridget Rothert added 13, bringing her final total for the season to 450, good for more than 20 points per game.
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Up next for Seneca Valley is the Quince Orchard Cougars, a team the Screamin' Eagles split with during the regular season. Quince Orchard defeated Seneca just last week, 53-37, thanks to a strong performance from the Cougars' Morgan Turner (18 points). Rothert had a team-high 15 points.
Seneca defeated QO earlier in the season, 49-43, to improve to 5-2 on Dec. 22. But Seneca has gone 4-11 since that game.
Now, though, the Screamin' Eagles get a fresh start. Having lost its last five games and eight out of nine, Seneca Valley, like every other team in the county, will be given a clean slate when the playoffs start this weekend. And Bumgardner, whose mantra all season has been to take it one game at a time, isn't changing his mindset for the postseason.
"We're going to play hard and fight hard and see what happens," said Bumgardner, who guided Seneca Valley to an undefeated 27-0 record last season on their way to their first state championship. "We split with QO in the regular season. If we play well, we'll have a shot. If we don't, then we won't [have a shot]. It's that simple."
