By Tom Robinson, NEPABasketball.com
The 2021 basketball season finally gets started Friday night with a rematch of one of the biggest games at the end of the 2019-20 season.
Lake-Lehman travels to Hazleton Area for a 6:00 varsity only game against the team it dumped in the overall Wyoming Valley Conference girls championship game.
Both teams finished second in their divisions, then knocked off the champion of each other’s division in the semifinals of the WVC playoffs.
Hazleton Area bounced back from its conference championship game loss to capture the District 2-4 Class 6A title and move into the state tournament.
Lake-Lehman fell one place short of Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association competition with a fourth-place finish in Class 4A.
Host Hazleton Area opens the season as the fifth-ranked Big School girls team in the My City Mortgage Super Six Power Rankings of District 2 teams. Lake-Lehman was one of two other teams that received consideration for the Big School top six.
Each team has a mixture of key returnees and graduation losses to overcome.
Both should be among the contenders for their division titles, Hazleton Area in Division 1 and Lake-Lehman in Division 2.
Lake-Lehman’s experience is in the frontcourt.
Claire Dougherty, a 6-foot-1 junior forward/center, was a first-team NEPABasketball.com WVC Division 2 all-star choice last season.
Chase Purdy, a 5-9 junior guard/forward, was a second-teamer. It was Purdy who hit the late game-winner in the 35-33 championship game victory.
Hailey Kline, a 6-foot sophomore center/forward, also returns to the starting lineup.
“We expect a solid frontline – very, very experienced,” said Lake-Lehman’s Charlie Lavan, the website’s choice for division Coach of the Year last season. “The guard spot is a little new to us this year. We have work there, but we have a lot of promise there.
“We’re in pretty good shape. We’d like a little more depth.”
Hazleton Area has to replace three of the four players who received postseason recognition, including Marissa Trivelpiece, the 2019 division Player of the Year and a first-team division and second-team, all-District 2 choice last season.
The Lady Cougars do return their other first-team, division all-star, Olivia Wolk.
Brooke Boretski, a senior guard, also returns along with three of the top four contributors from a deep and productive bench from a year ago.
MORE
2019 WVC CHAMPIONSHIP: Read the game story from last season’s championship game. https://nepabasketball.prestosports.com/2019-20/Articles/GGameWVCFinal.
MY CITY MORTGAGE SUPER SIX: https://nepabasketball.prestosports.com/2020-21/articles/SuperSix21A.
SCOREBOARD: Follow tonight’s games at https://nepabasketball.prestosports.com/composite?d=2021-01-08.
