POTTSVILLE – The Jim Thorpe girls knew it would be difficult task.

Having to replace a mountain of talent from last season’s Schuylkill League and District 11 championship team, the Olympians surpassed most pre-season expectations to post a winning record and qualify for the district tournament once again.

But on Saturday afternoon at the famed Mecca - where basketball junkies annually get a fix during the late winter and early spring - Jim Thorpe’s season came to an end.

Blue Mountain defeated the Olympians for the third time this season, posting a 36-15 victory in the quarterfinals of the Class 4A tournament.

The Eagles (21-4), who were playing without a pair of starters, managed to control the tempo nearly the entire way. Blue Mountain moves forward to face Allentown Central Catholic (22-3) in the semifinals of the tournament.

Both teams looked as if they were on a diet - in this case starving for points.

“If somebody would have told me that Blue Mountain would only have 29 points with three minutes left in the fourth quarter, I would have said that we would win,” Gauronsky said.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the case because the Olympians struggled mightily on offense.

Gauronsky knows her team is better than it showed on the offensive side. At the three-minute mark of the fourth quarter that she had referenced earlier, Thorpe had scored just eight points.

“For whatever reason, we were too stagnant on offense,” she said.

Blue Mountain wasn’t exactly kicking down doors offensively either. But were always comfortably ahead after jumping out to a 12-2 first quarter lead.

“We were missing two starters, so we had to figure out who fits in each spot and have everyone trying to gel together,” said Blue Mountain’s first-year coach Rose Carper. “Some of our kids haven’t played too much as starters, and that obviously impacted us.”

Trailing 15-2, the Olympians got some wind in their sails thanks to senior leader Mackenzie Yuhas and junior Kiara Ginopolas who had second quarter buckets to cut the Eagles’ lead to 15-7 at halftime.

But Blue Mountain ripped of a 10-0 run to open the second half to vanish any comeback hopes the Olympians might have been entertaining.

“We’re disappointed the way the season ended, but not on the season as a whole,” Gauronsky said.

At the beginning of the season, Thorpe was looked at as the afterthought with the loss of numerous talented players.

“That was okay,” Gauronsky said about the preseason outlook, “considering what we lost.

“We did some nice things this year with a lot of inexperienced players. I think if (senior) Haley Smelas not gotten hurt, we would have beaten some other teams and had an even better season than we did.

“But I’m really proud of the kids, proud of the effort they put in all season. Once again, we’re disappointed in the loss, but not the season. Our seniors did a great job leading. We’ve had some challenges, and it’s very difficult to lead when you have unforeseen challenges.”

FINAL TIME OUT … Yuhas made her final curtain call. The talented standout will graduate along with Smelas, Gabrielle Cinicola and Emily Dart.

QUOTEABLE … Thorpe coach Gauronsky: “We had three starters go down in the middle of the season and we had to do a rebuild on the rebuild.”

ADDING IT UP … The Eagles went 13-for-42 from the field and led in the rebounding department 35-21 with Emily Heydt collaring seven boards. Thorpe was just 6-for-33, and was led on the boards by Breanna Snisky’s six.

JIM THORPE

Yuhas 4-1-3-9, Ginopoles 1-0-0- 3, Snisky 1-0-0-2, Cinicola 0-1-2-1, Patton 0-0-2-0, Balliet 0-0-0-0, Dart 0-0-0-0. Totals 6-2-7-15

BLUE MOUNTAIN

Heydt 4-2-2-12, Hardy 4-3-7-11, Conway 3-2-4-9, Wagner 1-0-0-2, Campbell 1-0-0-2, Keck -0-0-0, K. Faust 0-0-0-0, Henninger 0-0-0-0, Place 0-0-0-0, Gibson 0-0-0-0, Armenise 0-0-0-0, Hall 0-0-0-0. Totals 13-7-13-36.

Jim Thorpe 2 5 1 7 - 15

Blue Mountain 12 3 12 9 - 36

Three-pointers: Jim Thorpe - Ginopoles 1; Blue Mountain - Conway 1, Heydt 1.