Ephrata Escapes in Overtime

The prologue to Tuesday’s furious drama looked benign at the time: Ephrata star Jasmine Griffin picking up her fourth foul early in the fourth quarter of her team’s Lancaster-Lebanon League playoff semifinal with Penn Manor.

That led to a furious rally by the Comets, followed by the story’s climax: Brynn Adams of the Mounts drilling a tying 3 a half-instant before the regulation buzzer to tie the game at 35 and force overtime.

After all that, the extra period was a relative anticlimax, the only points coming when Ephrata’s Kamyrn Andes banked in a short jumper with 11.8 seconds left to give the Mounts a 37-35 win and a berth opposite Lancaster Catholic in Thursday’s league championship game.

“This is the third game in a row when it would have been easy for us to go home,’’ Ephrata coach Brian Cerullo said. “They just keep finding a way to win.’’

Going home now means for good: Ephrata, 16-9, is not qualified for the District Three playoffs. Win or lose, Thursday is the end of the road.

“I don’t want to end on a loss,’’ said Adams. “The only way not to is to win it all, right? So, we’ll be ready for Catholic.’’

Penn Manor (16-8) is a veteran, tough, physical club that cancels opponents out with an aggressive 1-3-1 zone and a terrific power forward type in Lily Sugra.

Ephrata counters with the all-around brilliance of Griffin, a junior slasher who reached the 1,000 career-point milestone late in the first half.

Griffin scored 17, all but one of them before foul trouble set in in the third quarter, and handled most of the ballhandling duties.

When she committed her fourth, with about six minutes left, Cerullo simply tried to buy minutes in a quasi-delay game against the zone.

That worked until it didn’t, which was for about three minutes of game time. Then Penn Manor made a glorious last stand as the Mounts didn’t score for the last 4:30 of regulation.

Sugra, who scored 15 points and had 11 rebounds, bulled inside and earned two free throws with :23.7 left, and made both, to give the Comets a 35-32 lead.

Griffin drove and missed, Penn Manor missed the front end of a one-and-one and Penn Manor called time with :7.7 left.

The call was for Griffin to drive and kick to either Adams or the Mounts’ other bomber, Cara Tiesi.

“(Cerullo) told me to get set,’’ Adams said. “So I got set. It came to me and I let it fly.’’

It was her first career game-winner.

The overtime was dueling turnovers for a bit. Then Ephrata held the ball for a stretch and called time with 1:18 left.

The Mounts were patient and soon the ball found Andes in the lane.

“She’s actually made a lot of big shots for us,’’ Cerullo said.

She made another one. Penn Manor flew to the other end, got to the foul line twice, but couldn’t answer.

“Pretty fun,’’ Cerullo said, although, obviously, not for the Comets. “It was an emotional roller-coaster.’’

Catholic beat Ephrata 49-30 in Catholic’s holiday tournament Dec. 28.

“They got us pretty good,’’ Cerullo admitted. “We’re just going to go back to work tomorrow.’’

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