By Brady Extin | The Times-Post

LAPEL — For 24 minutes Greenfield-Central hung around with state runner-up, Lapel.

But to come out on top against good teams, it takes a full 32 minutes.

On Thursday, the host Bulldogs (8-1) entered the fourth quarter tied with Greenfield-Central but pulled away to win 50-44.

“That’s a really good Lapel team. They were runner-up in 2A and on paper, they might be even better this season,” Greenfield-Central head coach Bradley Key said. “This is a game we’ll look back on and say we had a chance at the end, but their big players came to play in the fourth quarter, and we have to make sure we can match that.”

After being limited for the majority of the night, Lapel’s standout players, Laniah Wills and Maddy Poynter, took over the final eight minutes in a 32-32 game.

Greenfield-Central’s Chaney Brown and Madison Sonsini did the best they could to try and match them.

A Brown steal and layup to open the fourth put G-C ahead 34-32, but Wills answered. Sonsini scored the next basket to put the Cougars back ahead, but again Wills answered. A basket and the foul off of a Wills offense rebound put the Bulldogs ahead 37-36 and they grew the lead from there.

Poynter knocked down her third 3-pointer of the game to push the lead to 40-36.

A Wills steal led to another Lapel trip to the free-throw line and another point.

The Bulldog duo scored nine of the next 10 Lapel points and totaled 17 of the team’s 18 fourth-quarter points.

A Brooklyn McConnell layup trimmed the lead to 41-38, but a Wills layup and three Poynter free throws put things out of reach.

Brown and Sonsini both hit late 3s for the Cougars, but the Bulldogs lead was too big.

Lapel led as big as 15-4 and held an 18-11 lead after the first quarter behind four 3-pointers. Poynter knocked down two, and both Rosemary Likens and Sophie Goodwin had one.

A 6-0 G-C run to close out the first and open the second quarter cut the lead to 18-13, and later in the quarter two consecutive Brown layups tied things at 19.

The Cougars took their first lead of the game with just over a minute to go in the half after a Sonsini offensive rebound and put back.

A tough Greenfield-Central zone defense held the Bulldogs to zero second-quarter field goals and just one point to enter the half ahead 21-19.

At the top of the zone, McConnell had five steals.

Three Taylor Mroz 3-pointers in the third offset a well-rounded quarter from the Cougars top three. McConnell and Sonsini had four points in the quarter, and Brown knocked down a deep ball.

On the night, the trio combined for 43 of the Cougars 44 points. Sonsini had 18, Brown had 16 and McConnell had nine.

Wills led the Bulldogs with 16, and Poynter added 14.

“She’s [Wills] a great player, and they did a good job trying to feed her. I thought Madison did a great job on her most of the night. We just have to make sure we get down there and dig against a player like that,” Key said. “She’s got multiple Division-I offers, and she’s really good. To hold a player like that to 16 is honestly really tough.”