Mounties 4th quarter rally comes up short in NTL Showdown
By: Ed Weaver | NTL Sports | February 14, 2020
A furious 4th quarter rally by the North Penn-Liberty Mounties came up short at the final buzzer as the Troy Trojans held on for a 58-57 lead to win their NTL Showdown semi-final game at Liberty on Thursday, February 13.
Troy will take on the Athens Wildcats on Saturday night at Mansfield University following the Athens-Towanda girls game.
Liberty led 16-13 after the opening quarter but after a 16-9 run in the 2nd, the Trojans led 29-25 at halftime. Troy did the most damage in the 3rd thanks to a 21-point quarter to extend their lead to 12 points heading into the 4th quarter.
That's when the Mounties regrouped and started to make their run.
After an early layup for Troy's Ty Barrett, a Brandon Thompson hook shot and Colton Litzelman steal and layup cut Troy's lead cut down to 52-43. Mason Imbt put Troy back up 11 on a layup, until a three-point shot by Samuel Shedden pulled the Mounties within 8, 54-46, and gave Liberty all the momentum. After a missed Troy layup back-to-back Thompson shots cut the lead down to 4 with under 3 minutes to play.
The Mounties cut the lead to 56-55 with 1:06 remaining on a Litzelman layup and again got the lead back down to a point with 35 seconds to go. Following a Liberty timeout the Mounties had one final shot for the win. The Mounties in-bounded to Noah Spencer. As he took the ball to the hole, looking to draw a foul, his first shot missed but came down with his own rebound. His second shot got blocked with the ball rolling back to Koleton Roupp. Roupp's shot was off the mark, giving Troy the win.
Thompson led the Mounties with 17 points and 7 rebounds, Litzelman finished with 15 points, and Duncan Zeafla scored 10.< /p>
Barrett (23) and Imbt (18) led the Trojans on the night.
The loss drops the Mounties to 20-3 on the year. The team will be back in action in next week's District IV Class A playoffs. The top-seeded Mounties have earned a first-round bye to the semi-finals.
Ed Weaver is the owner of Circle W Sports in Wellsboro, PA, is the Sports Director for The Home Page Network and the creator of WellsboroAthletics.com and WellsboroFootball.com. You can follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook.
