Council Rock South rode the dominating performance of Alex Wheatley in the paint to a 52-43 win over Pennsbury on Thursday night. To view game action photos, please visit the Photo Gallery.
HOLLAND – The strains of a familiar tune with new words could be heard in the hallway just outside Council Rock South’s locker room.
‘Happy thousand rebounds to you, happy thousand rebounds to you…’
There aren’t many players who could be on the receiving end of that song, but one of them was in the house on Thursday night, and that player – Alex Wheatley – just kept adding to her total, pulling down 12 rebounds to go along with 21 points and seven steals in the Golden Hawks’ 52-43 win over Pennsbury.
Prior to the game, Wheatley was recognized for reaching the 1,000-rebound milestone on Dec. 30.
“What a player,” Falcon coach Donna Nicolson said of Wheatley. “She just does everything well offensively, defensively, and beyond that, she’s a real good kid.
“She’s respectful, she plays hard. I mean – wow! Princeton is definitely getting a good one. She’s so deserving of everything she gets. She just plays the game. She gives her all the whole time she’s out there. She doesn’t take a break on any play.”
Wheatley, who will be taking her talents to Princeton University next year, is a difference maker on the basketball court, and it was not so much her points that hurt the Falcons but rather her steals and her dominance under the backboards.
“Wheatley is a pretty tough matchup for myself and Sajanna (Bethea),” Pennsbury junior captain Jae Jackson said. “If we could have kept her off the boards a little more, I think it would have helped us a lot. She kept them running.”
If Wheatley is the Golden Hawks’ engine, Alexis Hofstaedter is the driver. The junior point guard dished out seven assists to go along with 12 points, and the duo proved to be just too much to handle.
For the Falcons, sophomore Sajanna Bethea led the way with 18 points while Jackson added 13, which included a near-perfect 11-for-12 effort at the foul line. All told, the Falcons were 16-of-21 from the charity stripe, and for one half, they hung with the highly regarded Hawks.
The Falcons took an 8-6 lead after Jackson buried a pair from the foul line, but Hofstaedter answered with a baseline three for the Golden Hawks. Lindsay Bolger banked home a shot to give the Falcons a 10-9 lead, and they led 12-9 after a pair of Jackson foul shots.
Taylor buried two foul shots for the Golden Hawks, but CJ Kruscavage sank a trey to put the Falcons on top 15-11. A Caitlin Jackson bucket made it a 15-13 game at the end of one quarter.
“We were turning it over, and I know I personally was not executing,” Wheatley said. “Things weren’t clicking yet. Teams are good, and if given opportunities, they will stay in it. They’re not a bad team.”
“They executed very well,” Hofstaedter added. “And their foul shooting was amazing.”
Wheatley took a steal coast-to-coast for an easy bucket to knot the score early in the second quarter, and her putback with 6:10 remaining in the half put the Golden Hawks back on top. Another Hofstaedter trey made it a 20-15 game, and the Golden Hawks still led by five at the intermission (27-22).
Many of the Golden Hawks’ points were set up by their fullcourt pressure defense.
“I think it just gives us a lot of momentum and pushes us because when we get one steal, we want another one,” Hofstaedter said.
“The press was important tonight because we got kind of stagnant on offense,” Wheatley added. “We got a quick basket or two off the press, and then we got back the momentum, and we got our confidence back.”
The Golden Hawks set the tone for a dominant third quarter by coming up with a steal on the Falcons’ opening possession that Wheatley turned into two points at the other end.
“When defense leads to your offense, it’s always a momentum push,” Rock South coach Monica Stolic said. “It gives you a push and knocks the other team down. Their energy did pick up after that.”
Another Falcon turnover resulted in a putback by Hofstaedter, and a suddenly inspired Rock South squad led 31-22.
“We wanted to set the tone in the third quarter and then play a better fourth quarter,” Wheatley said. “That started on the very first play of the half.”
Wheatley connected on the first of two foul shots and then came up with the rebound of her miss on the second, putting it back up for a bucket that gave the Falcons a 34-22 lead. Another Wheatley bucket made it 36-22, and the Golden Hawks were in complete command.
“I don’t know if it’s them – I thought we lost sight of the ball, and our defense fell apart in the second half,” Jackson said. “We were doing pretty well with it in the first half. I thought it was our mistakes that led to their breakout lead in the second half.”
The Falcons scored their first bucket of the second half when Bethea connected midway through the quarter. A pair of Caitlin Jackson foul shots sent the Golden Hawks into the final quarter with a 39-24 lead.
When Hofstaedter found Wheatley rolling to the basket for an easy deuce, the Golden Hawks took their largest lead of the game, 41-25, and they never looked back.
“The first quarter we did a lot of good things offensively and defensively,” Nicholson said. “The second quarter we missed some shots, and the third quarter – (Wheatley) must have scored the first six or eight points before we were two minutes in. She knows how to turn it up even another notch.
“We did some good things. We take some good things away. We just need to play four quarters. We just have to stay focused and play together.”
“ I thought we did a lot of positives in the first quarter,” Jackson said. “As a team, we played really together. We fell apart a little bit in the second half. We’ll be ready for them next time.”
The Golden Hawks are 6-0 in SOL play and 11-0 overall, and if they’re feeling the pressure of being undefeated midway through the season, the players aren’t letting it show.
“We’re not trying to look at it as undefeated,” Hofstaedter said. “We just have to take it one game at a time.”
“It is great to be undefeated, but that could change with one game,” Wheatley added. “We just have to play one game at a time 100 percent.”
Pennsbury (43) – Jae Jackson 1 11-12 13; Kaitlin Kelly 1 3-5 5; Lindsay Bolger 2 0-0 4; Amie Eppolito 0 0-0 0; Sajanna Bethea 8 2-4 18; CJ Kruscavage 1 0-0 3; Carly Kovin 0 0-0 0; Lori Blazejeweski 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 13 16-21 43.
Council Rock South (52) – Taylor Dillon 0 0-0 0; Courtney Brown 2 1-1 5; Alexis Hofstaedter 5 0-0 12; Caitlin Jackson 1 3-4 5; Alex Wheatley 9 3-7 21; Taylor Hung 0 2-2 2; Rachel Jacob 2 0-0 4; Rachael Braccia 1 0-0 3. TOTALS 20 9-14 52.
Pennsbury 15 7 2 19-43
Council Rock South 13 14 12 13-52
3-point goals: Pennsbury – CJ Kruscavage. CR South – Alexis Hofstaedter, Rachael Braccia.
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