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She made deft moves that left defenders looking helpless and had an overflow crowd in an uproar.
She didn’t miss a foul shot for Holy Redeemer while taking eight of them down the stretch.
Yet, Alexis Lewis left the Pittston Area gym feeling far from perfect.
“I mean, I knew I was struggling,” Lewis said.
Or maybe she is just trying to fight a frantic battle to reach a bar that has been lifted impossibly high.
“Worst game she played all season,” her coach Chris Parker called Lewis’ night in the District 2 Class 2A semifinals.
He was reminded that his star senior led everyone with 22 points, which is only three points or so shy of her season average.
“She had a very quiet 22,” Parker said. “She can play a lot better than that. We need her to play a lot better than that to accomplish our goals.”
It’s no secret Lewis is an accomplished player.
She was a first-team All-Pennsylvania player in Class 3A last season, and should wind up as a Class 2A all-stater, if not an MVP, this season. Coaches from out of the area and out of state have marveled at Lewis’ blend of talent and instincts. She’s heading to play basketball for Iona next season on a Division I basketball scholarship. She’s been the best player in the Wyoming Valley Conference for the past two seasons, maybe even three.
But suddenly, a 22-point game in the late stages of districts isn’t good enough anymore.
Is her reputation too good for her own good?
Lewis scored 41 points during a victory over Riverdale Baptist, a renowned national power, during a showcase game in Maryland last month. She scored 30 or more points time and again while playing about a half’s worth of action time and again this season.
So red flags go off the moment Lewis can’t get out of a first half with more than two points, which is the total her only basket of the first two quarters Tuesday against Holy Cross brought her in the district semifinals.
“I can’t hang my head, I can’t be down on myself, I can’t give up on the game,” Lewis said. “I have to keep trusting myself and that’s what I did. I have a lot of confidence in my teammates. I know if I’m not having my best game, they’re going to do my best to keep my head up.”
It’s not like Holy Redeemer was down.
Thanks to three 3-point goals from point guard Lydia Lawson in the first half and tenacious inside play and 14 points from Rebecca Prociak over the first three quarters, Holy Redeemer held a lead after every quarter of the game.
By the time Lewis finally unleashed her fury with 18 points over the game’s final 9 minutes, 11 seconds, Holy Redeemer already had a nine-point lead.
Parker credited the other Royals for picking up the slack in Lewis’ “absence” from the score sheet.
Understand, Lewis isn’t offended by any of this.
As easily as she’s taken over games, she has repeatedly insisted she depends on her teammates, and they sure came through for Redeemer on Tuesday. Parker is trying to prepare the Royals for a state championship run in Class 2A after basically the same group reached the PIAA semifinals in the Class 3A tournament last season. And Lewis is hardest in the evaluation of herself, satisfied only when she reaches peak performance on every play.
The standards for her were constantly raised from the moment she walked into a high school gym.
You wonder if they are now out of reach.
A double dose of title games
Round III of the season-long battle between Pittston Area and Hazleton Area for area girls basketball supremacy will take place in the District 2 Class 4A title game at 8 p.m. Friday at Wilkes University’s Marts Center.
It will be preceded by Holy Redeemer’s battle with the Dunmore Bucks for the District 2 Class 2A championship, which tips off at 6 p.m. at the same site.
Pittston Area handed Hazleton Area its only loss in their tug-of-war for the top spot in the Wyoming Valley Conference Division I, with a convincing 54-43 victory Jan. 12 that propelled the Patriots to a 10-game league winning streak.
Hazleton Area returned the favor by breaking a tie with Pittston Area at the top of the Division with a 62-40 victory Feb. 5 in a game that ultimately lifted Hazleton Area to the WVC’s Division I title.
While neither of those games were particularly close, Friday’s should be, since the winner will receive the district’s lone spot in the PIAA Class 4A playoffs next week. Both times those two teams met, the home team was beaten on its own court. While the rubber-match game will be on a neutral court, second-seeded Pittston Area will be the visiting team on the scoreboard, since Hazleton Area is the district’s top seed. If trends should continue, that’s the good news for the Patriots.
The bad news? Their promising run ended last season with a loss to Holy Redeemer in a district third-place game at the same Marts Center site.
That gym, where Redeemer coach Parker starred while sparking Wilkes to back-to-back runs to the NCAA Division III national Sweet 16, has been hit or miss for the Royals. They lost a triple-overtime game to Abington Heights in last season’s District 2 Class 3A semifinals, but rebounded with a victory over Pittston Area in the third-place game to earn a spot in states.
This will be the first district championship game for top-seeded Holy Redeemer, which dropped a level in state classification this year and will square off with second-seeded Dunmore.
“Everybody’s been waiting for it, we’ve been waiting for it,” Holy Redeemer guard Lewis said.
Feeling the pain
Crestwood can only wonder what might have been if Maddie Ritsick was able to stay in the lineup.
The Comets appeared ready to roll after a painfully slow start to the season when Ritsick suffered a torn ACL late in an opening-round District 2 Class 3A playoff game. Ritsick, a junior, is facing surgery and a long rehabilitation process that will keep her out of action with her AAU summer team in Philadelphia in hopes of returning for her senior season with the Comets. She’s drawn interest from a host of Division I schools, including Penn and Patriot League teams Lehigh, Lafayette and American, and according to her father Marty Ritsick, at least one school is keeping its scholarship offer to her on the table despite the injury.
When she went out of the lineup, a Crestwood team rife with inexperience lost nearly 25 points per game, roughly 60 percent of its offense and its clear-cut leader on the court. Here’s hoping Ritsick’s recovery is a speedy one.