WIAA Division 4 girls basketball: Bangor's youth unrattled by Melrose-Mindoro's press in regional semifinal

When the Mustangs came out of the break down five, a full court press helped them score a pair of quick baskets. The Cardinals, with just three seniors on the team, managed to thrive in the chaos and rally off an 16-0 run.

“It’s just about calming down,” junior guard Anna Fronk said. “Just getting (younger players) in the right spots and getting them into their roles is very important when getting into the press.”

The third-seeded Cardinals ran away with the win from there, beating the sixth-seeded Mustangs 76-43.

The Cardinals (21-4) go on the road Saturday to face second-seeded Westfield in the regional finals. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.

Fronk scored a game-high 23 points with five 3-pointers, but the majority of that came in the first half before the Mustangs (14-12) started to zero in on her defensively.

“Obviously we’re a very young team,” Bangor coach Merlin Jones said. “Having the kids adapt and grow into their roles so quickly and jump into them on the fly, you saw the press they jumped into, a lot of young players had to jump into some roles all season long.”

“When they changed and decided they were going to deny Anna 100%, I had (freshman) Kiera Cavadini and (sophomore) Kennedy Hamilton who could step up and realize they could run point guard just as well.”

Cavadini led the second half scoring with six points while Hamilton added five. Junior guard Aubrey Langrehr finished with 17 points of her own.

“We just know we all have trust in each other,” Fronk said. “I know that my team has trust in me to shoot or dribble the ball and I know I put trust in them to do the same.”

The full court press from Melrose-Mindoro may have actually played into the Cardinals style, a fast paced offense. Fronk settled into the game during the Cardinals huge run, scoring 10 of the 16 points and pushing Bangor to a 23-6 lead around the halfway point of the first.

“I knew we were going to play fast,” Fronk said. “In the past few years we’ve had some slower teams, so we came into the year excited to get to play closer to our style.”

Melrose-Mindoro found some offense late in the first half with four 3-pointers between sophomore Anna Radcliffe and senior Claire Becker. The Mustangs still trailed 45-24 at halftime and only managed 19 points in the second half.

Radcliffe scored 18 points for the Mustangs. Becker and sophomore Lydia Tracey each finished with nine points a piece.

Bangor looks to win their fifth straight WIAA regional title in what’ll be their 10th straight regional final appearance. Westfield has three regional titles over the past three seasons, including a pair of state semifinal appearances.

“We’ve been adding a lot to our gameplan the last week or so just to be more prepared, have more things out and the kids' focus has been extremely great,” Jones said. “They’ve been giving attention to the next game, then the next game, then so on. I’m pretty proud of this group.”