Plans are to post a holiday tournament update on the site later this week. This notebook covers only action through Saturday.
Upper Merion took a road trip to Maryland last week.
It was quite a trip.
The Vikings returned from the Sherwood Holiday Tournament on Saturday night with a championship trophy, and they won it in style, downing Reservoir 74-65. Coach Tom Schurtz doesn’t remember when, if ever, his team put up 74 points.
“Never against a good team,” he said. “Years ago when we were really, really good and won a couple of league titles and had a couple of 1,000-point scorers, we put up 70 against teams that weren’t very good. To put up 70 against a team that was good was exciting.”
Reservoir earned a spot in the title game by upsetting the Washington Post’s 14th ranked squad, Wooton, 68-66.
Leading Reservoir is University of Penn signee Brianna Bradford. The 5-4 guard, an All-American candidate, scored 29 points, but it wasn’t nearly enough to offset a balanced Viking attack.
“She’s about the fastest person on the planet,” Schurtz said. “She’s the best player I have seen. We just played hard, straight up defense, and actually we just wore her down. She only had four points in the fourth quarter.”
Schurtz credited Jessica Moore for her defensive effort against Bradford.
“I’d say we held her,” he said. “She could have scored more.”
Lisa Ridgeway, who earned tournament MVP honors, had her second triple double in as many games, finishing with 21 points, 15 rebounds and 11 steals. She had plenty of help.
Alex Galdi had 14 points and 15 rebounds while Brianna Alvarez had a career-high 15 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Freshman Cassidy Koenig added 12 points after scoring 14 in the Vikings’ opening round romp over Sherwood.
“The nice thing about it was we started to show why we could be a pretty good team because we had so many players contribute,” Schurtz said. “It was a total team effort.”
The win was the fifth in a row for the streaking Vikings, who improved to 7-3 overall.
“We’re playing good basketball,” Schurtz said. “Any time you have a player going to a major D-1 program and you’re able to put up 74 points in a win, you have to be pretty excited.”
There was a 30-second clock in the tournament, and the Vikings had two 20-plus point quarters – they scored 22 in the first quarter and 25 in the fourth.
“I was happy with our execution,” said Schurtz, whose team led by as many as 18. “We have players who can score, but we’ve struggled at times this year and had games where we didn’t score.”
The Vikings are off until Jan. 6 when they will face Springfield.
“I’m nervous about the week off because the girls are ready to go,” Schurtz said. “We have momentum, and we have a whole week to kill.
“There are some really tough games on our calendar, so we’ll see if we can continue playing well. Our focus this week is – can we practice at a level that will keep this momentum going.”
Flying high – Bensalem is off to another quick start this season as the Owls improved to 6-1 after Tuesday night’s 68-55 non-league win over Chester. Fast starts are nothing new to the Owls, who jumped out of the gate to a 9-3 mark last year but stumbled down the stretch.
“I think this year we can maintain it,” coach Don Bogan said. “Last year we ran into internal problems. They’re still girls, but they’re playing harder together and working harder together. They’re getting along better, but there’s no telling what can happen.”
Bogan – who has three sisters – has a simple message for his players.
“This year I’m taking the approach - I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “Play basketball. That’s all we’re here for – to play basketball.”
Kristen Gilroy had the hot hand in Bensalem’s recent win over Chester, leading the Owls with 22 points. Sharmane Hall has once again been a force, but it’s the contributions of Bensalem’s lesser-known players that have been the difference.
Jackie Deegler has been averaging over 10 points a game at power forward, and with the graduation of Megan Pritchard, Kate Clarkson has moved from shooting guard to point guard.
Paige Dormont, who came off the bench for the Owls last season, is coming on strong at the two guard. She had 10 points in the win over Chester and shut down the Clippers’ top scorer.
Also stepping up is junior Alexis Nyekan, who is the first player off the bench for the Owls.
“She really gives us a spark off the bench,” Bogan said. “Last year, we didn’t get a big spark off our bench. This year she gives us a big spark.
“We probably go about eight deep this year. All of our players off the bench are younger players, which helps because our first five players are seniors.”
Titans rally for big win – Things didn’t look promising for a 2-4 Central Bucks South squad when the Titans went into the fourth quarter of last Tuesday’s non-league game against Abington staring at a 37-26 deficit.
But a funny thing happened in the fourth quarter. The Titans – sparked by six points from Ally Hinton - outscored the Ghosts 13-2 to send the game into overtime. In OT, the Titans continued to roll, outscoring the Ghosts 10-5 for a dramatic come-from-behind 49-44 win.
On their behalf, the Ghosts were without standout center Emily Leer (knee injury), but Leer’s absence notwithstanding, it was still an impressive comeback.
“We finally just dug in and started to play defense, and that was the difference between the first three quarters and the fourth,” said South coach Beth Mattern, whose team found itself staring at a 16-4 hole at the end of one quarter.
The Titans didn’t resort to the press but instead relied on their halfcourt pressure defense.
“The girls took it one play at a time,” Mattern said. “We made our foul shots, which helped. We also finished our layups, and those two things alone got us right back in the game.”
Mattern isn’t kidding when she says her team buried its foul shots. All told, the Titans were 15-for-18 from the charity stripe – 13-for-14 in the second half. They were a perfect six-for-six in OT, which included Kaycee Schaefer’s four-for-four. Schaefer had six of her team’s points in OT.
“Kaycee got herself to the foul line and finished,” Mattern said. “She also ran the open court to create easy baskets.”
So how exactly did the Titans maintain their confidence when they were trailing by double digits for three quarters?
“I wish I knew exactly what it was because I would use it again,” Mattern said. “You have to keep telling them how you believe in them, and if we keep playing the right way, good things will happen. We were fortunate that good things did happen.
“It was also Abington’s first game without Emily Leer, so some of them may have been in different positions.”
Mattern is hoping the win over a team that soundly defeated the Titans twice last season will provide impetus for the rest of the year.
“We haven’t hit the groove yet,” she said. “This is only one game out of a 22-game season. We can’t sit back and say we’re done because we’re not close to done. We need to keep working to get better every day, so our execution is better.
“We have a really tough schedule. We’re in a three-game deficit in our league, so we can’t take off any games.”
Calla Miller scored a team-high 11 points. Gab Vass led the Titans under the backboards with eight rebounds.
“She did a great job,” Mattern said. “Ally Holbert had a great defensive effort and helped control the boards as well.
“Laura Duffy, our point guard, had eight assists and was really passing the ball well. She did a nice job pushing the ball up the court, trying to get transition. We really just let our defense become our offense.”
Abington was led by the 12-point efforts of Ajanae Boone and Aijannah Peal.
Leer update – There’s no mistaking the significant role Emily Leer plays in Abington’s success, but the Ghosts will have to find a way to win without their smooth-as-silk center, who is expected to be out three to four weeks with a slight tear of her MCL.
Leer was sidelined in the Ghosts’ recent overtime loss to Central Bucks South, but coach Dan Marsh wasn’t buying that as an excuse for the fact that his team let a 37-26 lead slip away in the fourth quarter.
“Our team just doesn’t have a killer instinct, and we just didn’t put them away,” Marsh said. “A team’s at home and wanted to win as bad as CB South did – they came back in the fourth quarter, and they played hard.
“Our girls really wanted to prove they could win without Emily, and they had for three quarters, but in the fourth quarter, they made a few shots, and quite honestly, our girls panicked a little bit. We didn’t execute down the stretch, and they made every free throw they took.”
Marsh is hoping Leer will be back in time for Abington’s showdown against Council Rock North on Jan. 9 – which would be three weeks to the day that the injury occurred.
“That might be overly optimistic,” he said. “We should be good enough to play without her, but it changes the dynamics of our team a little bit.”
Panthers defeat archrival – Coach Greg Swavely can’t remember the last time Quakertown defeated Pennridge in girls’ basketball, but he knows it’s been a long, long time.
“I’m guessing we haven’t beaten Pennridge in the last 10 years,” the Panthers’ coach said. “It’s been a while.”
Last Tuesday, the Panthers gave themselves an early Christmas present, downing the Rams on their home court 44-40.
“This was a game the girls had marked in the summertime,” Swavely said. “It was a huge win.
“For the girls to realize they can beat a quality program like Pennridge just gives them a real boost of confidence and really helps motivate them to play each game with confidence, knowing they can win the game if they play the way they know how to. I was real proud of the effort the girls gave.”
The two teams were deadlocked 27-27 entering the final quarter when the Panthers went on a 17-13 tear.
“They decided they were going to come out in the fourth quarter and give it everything they had, lay everything on the table, and hopefully, things would work out,” Swavely said. “It did.”
The key to the win, according to the Panthers’ coach, was his team’s intensity.
“We didn’t have any letdowns,” he said. “Even when Pennridge made a run, we answered that run with a couple of baskets. The girls just kept the intensity up and played hard for the entire 32 minutes.”
The Panthers once again received big performances from Daniella Ciccarone (eight points, 11 rebounds, five assists) and Colleen Gavin (12 points, six rebounds), but it was the solid efforts of junior Kristine Jackieweicz (12 points, four rebounds) and sophomore Lauren Starzecky (12 points, 10 rebounds) that was the difference in the game.
“Lauren has great potential,” Swavely said of his sophomore forward. “She had a great game on the inside for us. She’s a player that as the season goes on teams will need to be concerned with.
“One of the concerns we had coming in – everyone knows about Daniella and Colleen. The question was who else was going to step up and provide balance. So far, we have had the other three girls on the court step up, and that’s the key to being successful.”
Pennridge was led by the 12-point effort of Marissa Kunkle. Lindsey Lyons added nine points and Shannon Zickler, eight.
Star watch: It’s hard to imagine anyone having a better week than Upper Merion’s Lisa Ridgeway, who managed to put up triple-doubles in both of her team’s games at the Sherwood Holiday Tournament in Maryland, but there were more than a few performances of note from SOL players.
William Tennent received a 15-point effort from Megan Zimmerman in its 56-19 rout of Northeast.
Lato’sha Reves had a pair of double-figure efforts for Upper Moreland at the Christopher Dock Holiday Tournament. Reves had 13 points in the Golden Bears’ opening round 43-20 win over Harry S. Truman and had 11 in the Bears’ 46-27 loss to Dock in the title game.
Junior Monet Constant scored 19 points, Shayla Felder added 15 while Sydni Epps and Dayna McCrewell each had 10 points in Cheltenham’s 77-25 rout of Northeast in a game that saw the Lady Panthers open up a 50-10 halftime lead. Earlier in the week, Felder (20 points), Constant (18 points) and Epps (14 points) paced the Lady Panthers in their 83-31 win over Springfield. Annie Crudele led the Spartans with 12 points. Crudele and Elise DiFilippo paced the Spartans in a 62-35 loss to Lower Moreland with 10 points each.
Wissahickon’s Rachel Schaible scored 13 points in the Trojan’s 44-15 rout of Bishop McDevitt.
Council Rock South handed Pennridge its first defeat last Monday, edging the Rams 51-49. Emily Nowicke (13 points) and Chelsea Allen (10 points) paced a balanced Hawk attack. Shannon Zickler (13 points), Lindsey Lyons (11 points) and Marissa Kunkle (10 points) led the Rams.
Neshaminy’s Kelsey Ryan scored 18 points in the Redskins’ 38-19 win over Central Bucks West.
Norristown received big performances from Brittney Rose (15 points), Natasha Matthews (14 points) and Cashae Hinton (10 points) in the Eagles’ 61-47 romp over Pottstown.
Upper Merion was led by the 12-point effort of Jessica Moore in its 33-27 win over Phoenixville.
Junior Brittany Sandone scored 17 points while freshman Liz Mower contributed 12 points and Averie Brittin, 11 points, in Souderton’s 69-57 loss to Upper Perk.
Pennsbury received a 13-point effort from Kelsey Belascak while Kelly Rebert added 11 in a 50-44 loss to Villa Joseph Marie.
- Log in to post comments
0
