Coupeville Sports

Kailey Kellner tossed in eight points Saturday during the final game of her sophomore basketball season at D’Youville College. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)

Kailey Kellner reached the end of the season doing what she does best – putting the ball in the bucket.

The Coupeville grad, now a sophomore at D’Youville College in New York, rattled the rim for eight points Saturday as the Spartans celebrated Senior Night with an 82-67 win over visiting Franciscan University.

The victory lifts D’Youville’s final record to 7-11 in Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference action, 10-15 overall.

The top six teams in the league advance to the playoffs, but the Spartans missed out on a postseason berth by a single win.

D’Youville finished strongly, winning two of its final three games, but a 2-7 stretch right before that made it hard to climb any higher in the 10-team conference.

From the outside, one could argue Kellner should have gotten more playing time, since the turnaround started when the former Wolf was inserted into the starting lineup for the first time this season.

Saturday, the Spartans honored seniors Monica June, Darian Evans, and Jordan Smith, then put the game away in the second quarter.

After heading into the first break knotted up at 12-12, D’Youville went on a 21-12 run across the next 10 minutes.

Kellner tossed in four of her eight points during the surge, and from there it was easy street for the Spartans.

Coasting home for the win with 26-24 and 23-20 advantages across the final two quarters, D’Youville sent its seniors, and the fans, back out into the 29-degree Buffalo weather with smiles on their faces.

Filling up the stat sheet, Kellner snatched four rebounds and dealt out an assist to go along with her eight points.

For the season, if you believe the D’Youville stat page (and that’s questionable, as Kellner was dinged twice this season by score-keepers who gave credit for her baskets to others), Coupeville’s progeny finished with 76 points, 44 rebounds, 17 assists and four steals.

Her best stat was her free-throw shooting, where she knocked down 14 of 19 shots. That pencils out to 73.7%, and was among the best totals posted by a Spartan in 2018-2019.