HOMETOWN - The Dunmore High School girls basketball team was locked down at Marian Catholic High School in Hometown on Sunday after a report of a man carrying a rifle case near the Schuylkill County building.
Rush Twp. police received the report at 3:54 p.m. as the Lady Bucks were playing Marian. Police responded, secured the building and grounds, and did a search of the school, but they couldn't find a man with a rifle case, according to a supervisor at Schuylkill County Communications center in Pottsville.
Both girls basketball teams were moved to a downstairs room to wait for state and local police to address the situation.
"We were scared, but our coaches and all the adults around us knew how to handle it," Dunmore sophomore Jillian Korgeski said. She said they were told, "We would be fine, to calm down, and the state police were on their way."
The players were in the locker room when news of the possible shooter was delivered by another team member's parent, according to Jillian.
After the lockdown, the prevailing feeling was "concern," Dunmore head coach Ben O'Brien said.
"Obviously they were a little shaken up," he said of the players. "A lot of our team's families were at the game, and (players) weren't sure what was going on."
That was the case for senior Molly Burke, who said her parents attended the game.
"They were in the bleachers, and I didn't know where everybody in the bleachers went," she said.
The Dunmore team - which lost the game to Marian in a squeaker, 57-54 - was escorted to the bus about an hour after the lockdown began, according to Mr. O'Brien.
"We were happy that we got out of there," Jillian said of the talk on the drive home. "We couldn't believe it happened and that it actually does happen around here."
Assisting Rush Twp. in the investigation were state police at Frackville and municipal police from Tamaqua, Kline Twp., McAdoo and Mahanoy City, according to the comm center supervisor. Efforts to reach Rush Twp. police Sunday night were unsuccessful.
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