North Penn earned a trip Villanova University and the District One AAAA final on Friday night, thanks to the Lady Knights 74-59 win over seventh-seeded West Chester Rustin. To view game action photos, please visit the Photo Gallery.
By Mary Jane Souder
Rachel Grace, affectionately known as RG, emerged from North Penn’s postgame meeting wearing a big smile.
“That’s how we do it,” the Lady Knights’ student manager said. “That’s how we do it.”
How the Lady Knights ‘did it’ in Wednesday night’s 74-59 District One AAAA semifinal win over West Chester Rustin was by burying shots at a clip that the Golden Knights could not possibly match. They connected on 11-of-21 shots from beyond the arc, and for good measure, they buried 19-of-24 from the foul line in the fourth quarter, 23-of-30 for the game.
It’s the kind of torrid offensive performance that more than made up for the Lady Knights’ struggles in the contest.
“The things we stress at practice – it’s kind of funny, but we didn’t do them particularly well, which was boxing out and taking care of the ball,” coach Maggie deMarteleire said. “But when it counted, we did do those things.
“That’s a tough matchup. I’m just glad we got through it. Their size, they’re so athletic, and they have a couple of kids who can knock down three’s, so they have a nice balance.”
The win vaulted the Lady Knights into Friday night’s district title game at Villanova University.
“It’s amazing,” senior Bri Cullen said. “There’s no feeling like it, and it brings us together as a team.”
The Lady Knights will face a familiar opponent in Spring-Ford – a 34-33 winner over top-seeded Mount St. Joseph in the other semifinal. It is the second time in three years the two teams have met in the district finals. In 2012, Spring-Ford defeated North Penn 46-33.
“We’ve learned from that,” senior Erin Maher said. “We’ve been thinking about it ever since, and I don’t want to feel the way we felt after that game.
“We worked so hard to get there, and it just felt like it was all for nothing at the time. We want to make sure we put our heart and soul into it and come out with a district championship.”
The Lady Knights displayed remarkable balance. Senior Vicky Tumasz, despite foul woes, scored a game-high 22 points, which included four three-pointers. Freshman Sam Carangi knocked down five three-pointers and finished with 19 points. Maher added 17 points, eight rebounds and three blocks, and Cullen had 11 points, five rebounds and four assists. Sophomore Mikaela Giuliani had five rebounds.
“Each and every one of us – we were all confident in each other,” Tumasz said. “Our teammates set us up in a good position to shoot the ball, and we were relaxed and we didn’t force it.”
The Lady Knights’ impressive shooting performance negated their season-high 21 turnovers. Rustin certainly had something to do with that, boasting a lineup that gave the Golden Knights a height advantage at every position.
“If we play like we did today on Friday, we’re not coming out on top,” Maher said. “I think we know that, and we’re going to put in a solid day of practice and hopefully get it straight.
“I don’t know if it was nerves – we knew they were going to pressure us, and we just weren’t very composed, especially in the first half. Coach warned us that they were going to do that. We just didn’t handle it the way we should have.”
The Lady Knights got on the scoreboard first when Giuliani found Maher for an easy bucket, but Rustin’s Courtney Warley answered with a layup at the other end. The Lady Knights turned the ball over on the inbounds, and Rustin’s Noelle Powell (17 points) made it hurt, turning it into an easy bucket.
Carangi answered by hitting nothing but net on a trey from the top of the circle, and after a Rustin miss, Carangi buried a baseline three-pointer to put North Penn on top 8-4.
“That’s definitely a motivator,” Tumasz said. “Especially because they were crashing the boards – our rebounding wasn’t as strong as we would like it to be, but if we were making our shots, we didn’t have to worry about it.”
By the end of the quarter, the Lady Knights led 17-10. The Golden Knights made it a two-point game after a putback by Powell, but Tumasz connected on a three to give the Lady Knights a 20-15 edge. Rustin’s Annie Pitts buried a three-pointer to make it a two-point game, but another Carangi three was followed by a Maher steal, and this time it was Tumasz connecting on her second three of the quarter to give her team a 26-18 advantage.
The Lady Knights had their largest lead of the half (30-21) after Maher connected on one-of-two from the foul line, and it was still a nine-point game after a Cullen bucket with a minute remaining in the half. Back-to-back baskets by Rustin, the second at the buzzer after a North Penn turnover, made it a 32-27 game at the intermission.
Rustin pulled to within three after another Warley basket to open the third quarter, but Tumasz answered with back-to-back three-pointers to put the Lady Knights on top 38-29. They led 40-31 after Tumasz connected from just inside the arc. Rustin trimmed that lead to 40-34, and when Tumasz took a seat on the bench with 3:34 remaining in the third quarter after being whistled for her fourth foul, it looked like the perfect time for the Golden Knights to make a move.
“I was really mad with myself, but my teammates stepped up,” Tumasz said. “It wasn’t a one-player game. Each and every single one of us stepped up.”
Another Carangi three-pointer put the Lady Knights on top 43-35, and they led 48-38 heading into the fourth. They stretched that lead to 50-38 after Maher sank both ends of a one-and-one to open the fourth period.
It looked as though the Lady Knights would cruise to the finish line after Cullen sank one-of-two from the foul line to put her team on top 56-43 midway through the final period. Rustin didn’t go down quietly, answering with a 9-3 run to make it a 58-52 game with 2:50 remaining.
“They’re so strong,” Cullen said. “They don’t quit, and they don’t take plays off. They hit the boards, they push the ball, and they put 100 percent in just like we do. It really just came down to whose shots were falling and who had enough heart to get on the floor and just get in that pile and work as hard as they possibly could.”
Maher scored on a tough drive, but senior center Adashia Franklyn, who is heading to St. Joe’s on a basketball scholarship, answered for Rustin, trimming North Penn’s lead to 60-54 with 1:40 left in regulation. The Golden Knights were whistled for an intentional foul at midcourt. Tumasz sank one-of-two, and then, after the Lady Knights were awarded the ball, Maher duplicated that feat, giving North Penn a 62-54 lead. The Lady Knights sealed Rustin’s fate by burying their foul shots down the stretch.
“They started coming back, and I was just thinking, ‘We have to calm down, control the ball, take care of the ball, and we’ll be fine,’” Carangi said.
“They very talented,” Maher said. “They’re a fast, physical team. They bodied us up, and we definitely felt the pressure throughout the game.
“I think we handled it a lot better in the third quarter, but I think it took three quarters for me to adjust. In the fourth quarter, I think we settled in. It’s tough when you play a team you don’t know anything about.”
Franklin and Noelle Powell, both 1,000-point scorers, led the Golden Knights with 17 points each. Courtney Warley added 11.
West Chester Rustin 10 17 11 19-59
North Penn 17 15 16 26-79
RUSTIN (59)- Casey Warley 1 0-0 3; Courtney Warley 5 1-2 11; Noelle Powell 6 4-5 17; Katie O’Hare 2 0-2 6; Adashia Franklyn 6 5-9 17; Lex Zavitsky 1 0-0 2; Annie Pitts 1 0-0 3; TOTALS 22 10-18 59.
NORTH PENN (74) – Erin Maher 5 6-8 17; Mikaela Giuliani 0 3-4 3; Bri Cullen 2 6-8 11; Vicky Tumasz 7 4-6 22; Sam Carangi 5 4-4 19; Irisa Ye 1 0-0 2; Jess Huber 0 0-0 0; TOTALS 20 23-30 74.
Three-point goals: Rustin – O’Hare 2, Pitts, Powell, Ca. Warley; NP – Carangi 5, Tumasz 4, Maher, Cullen.
#2 GARNET VALLEY 41, #14 CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 33
The Titans saw their season end in a playback game for a state berth against the second-seeded Jaguars. The Titans led 17-16 at halftime but were outscored 25-16 in the second half.
Senior Lauren Mosher led the Titans with 14 points, and sophomore Jordan Vitelli added eight. The Titans closed out the year with a 19-7 record overall (10-4 SOL).
Central Bucks South 10 7 8 8-33
Garnet Valley 10 6 12 13-41
#12 METHACTON 45, #17 SOUDERTON 35
The Indians fell behind early and spent the rest of the game playing catch up in a must-win game for a state berth. The Warriors led 9-6 at the end of one quarter and extended that lead to 24-14 by halftime. The Indians played them even in the second half, but that wasn’t good enough.
Sarah Derstein’s 10 points led the Indians while Devon Boehm and Allison Gallagher both scored eight points. Katie O’Connor had seven for the Indians, who closed out their season with an 18-8 record (10-4 SOL).
Souderton 6 8 10 11-35
Methacton 9 15 11 10-45
#18 ABINGTON 51, #22 CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 49 (2 OT)
The Ghosts needed a last-second shot by Deja Rawls in the second overtime to eke out the double overtime win over the pesky Patriots.
“We came out flat again, and I don’t know how that happens, but give credit to CB East – they made us look bad,” coach Dan Marsh said.
Michael Harris led the Ghosts with 19 points while Rawls had 14. For the Patriots, senior Courtney Webster led the way with 17 points but fouled out in the fourth quarter. Karoline White added nine points.
“Their defense bothered us the whole game, and Webster was killing us,” Marsh said. “She fouled out, and that was huge.”
The Patriots led 10-6 at the end of one quarter and took a 20-14 lead into halftime. They trailed 30-19 at one point in the third quarter.
“We struggled against their zone, and they did a very good job of making us uncomfortable, not letting us do what we wanted to do,” Marsh said. “So we had to press. We went to our diamond press, and it kind of turned things around.”
The Ghosts closed out regulation with an 18-7 tear, and the Patriots actually needed a three-pointer by Bridget Birkhead to knot the score late in regulation. The Ghosts had a chance to win it but came up short.
In the first OT, the Ghosts opened up a three-point lead only to lose it when Kyra Scaliti connected on a trey to knot the score. In the second OT, it was Katelyn Miller burying a three-pointer to knot things up, but this time, Rawls closed it out for the Ghosts with a bucket on a drive at the buzzer.
The Ghosts (19-7, 12-2 SOL) will travel to Central Bucks West Saturday to determine the fifth place team.
“We can’t focus on what seed we’re going to get,” Marsh said. “We just want to start playing good basketball and start a new run.
“We reverted to some old habits tonight and the last game. We were able to get back to what we do well in the second half and late in the game, but we’ve got to know – at this point, everyone is so good. We’re very fortunate to get out of this with a win.
“I think I sometimes forget how young we are. We start two sophomores and two juniors, and we don’t have much experience in this kind of atmosphere. Hopefully, we’ll pull from this and know that these games are only going to get bigger and more intense as we go.”
Central Bucks East 10 10 10 7 7 5-49
Abington 6 8 10 13 7 7-51
#5 CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 36, #8 BISHOP SHANAHAN 32
The Bucks needed a late-game comeback to escape with the win. Makenzie Mason and Nicole Munger led the Bucks with 11 points each.
West led 12-5 after one quarter but found itself clinging to a 19-17 lead at halftime. Things got worse in a third quarter that saw Shanahan go on a 10-2 run to take a 27-21 lead into the final quarter when the Bucks came to life, closing out the game with a 15-5 tear.
West (20-6, 10-4 SOL) will host Abington on Saturday in a battle for fifth place,
Bishop Shanahan 5 12 10 5-32
Central Bucks West 12 7 2 15-36
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