Keira Levengood, Wilson, on the threshold of one last hurrah
Keira Levengood has a few big games left in her high school career, then she’s packing it in. She’ll attend the University of Louisville in the fall, study marketing and become a fan.
“I want to go to a big DI school to watch (sports),” the Wilson senior said. “I think that would be a good part of college.”
She’ll become a regular at the KFC Yum! Center and cheer for the Cardinals. Unlike many sitting around her, she’ll know what’s it like to perform in a huge arena, with all the nerves and the noise and the pressure of a big game.
She handled it like she’s been there, done that, Tuesday night at Santander Arena. Levengood made all the right plays and always seemed to be in the right spot as the third-seeded Bulldogs survived and advanced with a 37-34 win over seventh-seeded Reading High in a BCIAA girls semifinal.
“I was nervous,” she said of playing in the Berks’ Big House for the first time, “but right when I stepped on the court they all went away and I felt pretty comfortable.
“I just played through it; it felt good being out there.”
She’ll be out there again Friday, when the Bulldogs play Gov. Mifflin in the championship game before an even bigger crowd. They’ll tip at 6.
The Bulldogs missed their first 12 shots Tuesday and trailed 7-1 after five minutes. It didn’t look good.
Levengood — who did the same kind of thing during soccer season, when the Bulldogs won the Berks championship and reached the district title game– was there to steady them when they needed it most.
She scored seven points in a 12-0 run that spanned the end of the first quarter and start of the second and that changed the tone of the game. The Bulldogs had the lead, and control, and they never let go of either, though the Red Knights (13-11) pushed hard at the end and nearly sent the game to overtime.
“Everybody sees Isis’ points and rebounds and doesn’t think much about everybody else,” Wilson coach Chris Gallo said of his 6-2 center, Isis Dojan. “In a lot of ways (Kiera) does everything for us. She’s averaging nine (points), six rebounds and four assists. She really does do it all.
“When I was scouting two years ago, when she was a sophomore, I was impressed with her floor vision as a big.”
Levengood finished with a game-high 14 points, grabbed seven rebounds and had two assists. Her game was more than that, though. She knew when she had an advantage on a defender and took the ball to the basket. She knew when one of her guards was in trouble and came out to help control the ball. She knew when Dojan was free underneath and found her with the ball.
She played like you expect a senior to play at this time of the year; that’s the way the Bulldogs, who start four seniors, have been playing the last several weeks. They have won 10 of their last 11 games, with W’s against Gov. Mifflin, Berks Catholic and now Reading High, twice, in that span.
“Having us four seniors together on the floor gives us an advantage,” Levengood said, “because we’ve been playing together for a while and we all work well together and share the ball well. I knew we had the team to do it, with four seniors and Isis. We definitely have one of the strongest lineups.”
The strongest part of the Bulldogs’ lineup is inside, where the 5-11 Levengood lines up next to Isis. No one in Berks can match that kind of length. That’s why the Bulldogs have made it this far.
The Red Knights had no one to match up against them, especially Dojan. She scored 11 points, grabbed 18 rebounds and rejected eight shots. In a game where baskets were true treasures, those are game-changing numbers.
The Bulldogs seemed comfortably ahead, leading 34-23 after Levengood went the length of the floor for a layup with 5 1/3 minutes left.
Against the Red Knights, of course, nothing is ever comfortable. They kept attacking, then got back in it when Yamilex Rodriguez and Laysha Pimentel hit 3-pointers in the final minute, the second cutting Wilson’s lead to three. They had one last chance, when Pimentel got an open look from the corner just before the buzzer, but it missed, ending their season.
The Bulldogs have come a long in two months. They opened the season 1-2. Now they’re playing for a championship.
“Some people were in panic mode,” Gallo said of that rough start. “I wasn’t. We didn’t play well (at the beginning of the year), but I knew the things that we had to fix, and they did. You like to be playing your best basketball now.”
And they are.