WYNCOTE – Shayla Felder wanted a chance for redemption.
In the opening seconds of the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s non-league showdown against Central Bucks East, Cheltenham’s standout guard came up with a steal but uncharacteristically missed a wide open layup.
“My legs were going too fast, I was too excited,” Felder said. “I was thinking, ‘I have to make this.’
“After the fact, it was like – what if there’s not a second chance. What if that was going to determine the game.”
For a while, it looked like Felder and her teammates might not have a second chance.
Just moments after the miss, East’s Caitlin Vasey – unstoppable all night – scored to put the Patriots on top 38-33. After a Lady Panther miss, Vasey, who turned in a brilliant 23-point effort, buried a short jumper to up the Patriots’ lead to seven less than a minute into the fourth quarter.
“I was mad at myself pretty hard,” Felder said. “I just kept playing defense. I was keeping myself in the game. I was like, ‘I have to keep playing. I have to keep my head in it.’”
Felder’s focus paid off in the end.
With eight seconds remaining in regulation and the Lady Panthers clinging to a 48-46 lead, Felder stepped to the foul line and calmly buried a pair, sealing the Patriots’ fate as the Panthers held on for the dramatic 50-46 come-from-behind win.
For the game, Felder - who finished with a team-high 18 points to go along with seven rebounds and five steals - was a perfect 10-for-10 at the foul line, six-for-six in the final quarter.
“My foul shooting has been off, but on Thursday, we spent 30 minutes working on foul shots,” she said. “I just had to do what I do in practice.”
Foul shots were clearly the difference in Saturday’s game.
The Patriots had eight more field goals than the Lady Panthers, but Cheltenham took 29 foul shots while the Patriots took just seven – a fact that was not lost on East coach Tom Lonergan.
“They had three field goals in the entire second half,” the Patriots’ coach said. “Three field goals in the entire second half, but when it’s 29-7, what can you do?
“We’re not taking anything away from Cheltenham. They’re, to me, the best team in our district. They are a tremendous team, but my kids played hard. We started out slow. Not too many teams can start out slow and recover and actually take a lead on them. Again, 29-7 – I can’t get over that.”
The Panthers’ fourth quarter comeback began and ended at the foul line.
They began chipping away at the Patriots’ seven-point lead when Jenna Peoples, who was fouled going back up after an offensive board, buried a pair at the charity stripe. A Patriot turnover against the Panthers’ trapping defense set the stage for a pair of Dayna McCrewell foul shots.
Sarah Pullar, who was saddled with foul woes and eventually fouled out, sank both ends of a one-and-one for the Patriots. Monet Constant answered, connecting on a tough pull-up jumper in the paint.
The Lady Panthers’ junior guard – who did not have a point in the second and third quarters after scoring six in the first – admits that she had some serious concerns as she watched from her seat on the bench early in the fourth quarter.
“I had this little thought, ‘What’s going to happen? Are we going to lose this?’” Constant said. “I had so much faith in the team, and when I got mad, I had to calm down and just trust my team, knowing we were going to pull through no matter how bad it might have seemed.”
The Panthers’ pressure defense forced back-to-back East turnovers, but they scored just one point off those miscues. An East miss set the stage for a pair of Felder foul shots that knotted the score at the 3:53 mark.
Constant – playing renewed passion after her stint on the bench - pulled down the rebound of another East miss and moments later hit nothing but net on a trey that put the Panthers on top 45-42 at the 3:05 mark.
“When I went back in, I said, ‘This is it. This is all we have left,’ and I decided to go out there and give everything I had,” said Constant, who finished the game with 12 points, five steals and four rebounds.
The Patriots – after burning their final timeout to avoid a five-second violation – came up empty yet again on the offensive end. Liz Taliaferro pulled down the defensive rebound, and when Felder connected on a pair of foul shots, the Panthers led 47-42 with 1:01 showing on the scoreboard clock.
“It’s a horrible feeling, especially when you can gradually see the lead getting smaller and smaller,” Vasey said. “You just want to go out there and score, but we weren’t able to.
“We kept fouling them, and they kept making their foul shots.”
The Patriots didn’t go down quietly. Liz Martin (10 points) scored in the paint to make it a three-point game, but the Patriots – who thought they were being whistled for a kick near midcourt – were called for yet another foul.
This one sent McCrewell to the line. She sank one-of-two, giving the Panthers a 48-44 lead with 31 seconds to play. Vasey scored on a drive at the other end to pull the Patriots to within two, but Felder iced the win by sinking a pair from the foul line.
“This means everything,” Constant said. “For us losing to them last year – it shows how much we improved and how much better we are as a team.
“Just to come back and win it like we did, it shows how well we play as a team and how we trust each other and that we can come back and win the game no matter how far down we are.”
The Patriots showed they have some resiliency of their own. They fell behind 8-0 and trailed 19-10 at the end of one quarter. Back-to-back fast break buckets – the first by Jaime Donovan and the second by Vasey – cut that deficit to five.
The Panthers were hardly helping their own cause as they managed just two points in the opening four minutes of the second quarter, both from the foul line.
A bucket by Vasey cut the Panthers’ lead to one, but a putback by Peoples allowed the Panthers to take a 25-22 lead into the intermission.
“We came out a little bit intimidated in the beginning,” Lonergan said. “We called a timeout early to settle them down, and they were able to get their composure and get themselves defensively settled down.
“Once they did that, we got ourselves back in the game.”
Vasey connected on a pull-up jumper over her defender on a fast break to make it a one-point game early in the second half, and the Patriots took their first lead when Martin scored on a tough shot in the paint. A Donovan block set the stage for another tough basket in traffic by Martin that gave the Patriots a 28-25 lead midway through the quarter.
Felder brought an end to the Panthers’ four-minute scoring drought when she buried a trey, but Donovan answered with a three-pointer at the other end. The Patriots still led by three (36-33) heading into the fourth quarter when the Panthers staged their inspired comeback.
“We just couldn’t shoot,” Cheltenham coach Bob Schaefer said. “We just couldn’t come up with a score. We just weren’t hitting today.
“Defense wins games. When we went into the trap, that really rattled them. “
While the Lady Panthers upped their record to 18-1, the Patriots fell to 18-2.
“I think everyone played as hard as they could,” Vasey said. “It’s a shame when it comes down to foul shots like that.
“We came out hoping to beat the division leader, and we didn’t.”
CHELTENHAM 50, CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 46
Central Bucks East (46) – Jaime Donovan 3 0-0 7, Sarah Martin 0 0-0 0, Liz Martin 4 2-2 10, Caitlin Vasey 10 3-3 23, Madge Ross 2 0-0 4, Melissa Remey 0 0-0 0, Sarah Pullar 0 2-2 2, Jordan Seiz 0 0-0 0, Kristina Pogue 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 7-7 46.
Cheltenham (50) – Jenna Peoples 3 3-3 9, Monet Constant 4 3-4 12, Shayla Felder 3 10-10 18, Dayna McCrewell 0 6-8 6, Liz Taliaferro 1 2-3 4, Tiffany Johnson 0 0-0 0, Kira Ogden 0 1-1 1, Sydni Epps 0 0-0 0. Totals 11 25-29 50.
Central Bucks East 10 12 14 10-46
Cheltenham 19 6 8 17-50
Three-point goals: CB East – Jaime Donovan. Cheltenham – Shayla Felder, 2, Monet Constant.
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