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ABINGTON – Aiyannah Peal emerged from her team’s post-game meeting after Abington’s wild and exciting 59-57 non-league win over Central Bucks South on Wednesday afternoon and admitted she was having a hard time calming down.
“My legs are still shaking,” Abington’s sophomore guard said.
Small wonder.
On more than one occasion, it looked as though the Ghosts had the game well in hand with the final coming after Emily Leer found Peal cutting to the hole for an easy deuce that gave Abington a 58-51 lead with 2:02 remaining in regulation.
That lead turned out to be anything but secure.
Gab Vass hit nothing net on a trey out of a South timeout, and after the Ghosts misfired on the front end of a one-and-one, South turned an offensive board by Nicole Mummert into three points, thanks to a Katelyn Schneider trey that pulled the Titans to within one (58-57) with 32 seconds still remaining.
Leer sank one-of-two from the foul line to put the Ghosts on top 59-57 with 21 seconds showing on the scoreboard clock, and only after the Titans – who were out of timeouts – misfired on a pair of long-range bombs was a win in the books for the Ghosts.
“It’s a lot to take in,” South coach Beth Mattern said. “I have to go back and watch that game again on film.
“It was definitely exciting. Unfortunately, we came up a little bit short.”
The Titans combated the glittering 22-point, 10-rebound effort of Leer as well as the 17-point performance of Peal by burying one three-pointer after another. All told, they sank eight – six in an exciting second half.
“We live and die by it sometimes,” Vass said. “We’re a team of mostly guards, but it’s not about how big we are, it’s how big we play.
“We have a lot of heart, and we’re confident in our shots because we have a lot of good shooters.”
Vass - one of four South players to bury a pair of treys – led a balanced Titan attack with 13 points while Katelyn Schneider and Kaycee Schaefer each had 12 points. Both had a pair of treys. Brittany Kaewell – who also had two three-pointers – and Nicole Mummert both had nine points. Mummert also had 13 rebounds.
The ‘X’ factor in Wednesday’s game might well have been Abington’s Jamie Shectman, who finished the game with 13 points. All of those came from the perimeter, and each basket came at a most opportune time.
“Shectman was huge today,” Abington coach Dan Marsh said. “Jamie’s our zone buster. That’s her job.”
For a while, it looked as though the Ghosts wouldn’t need Shectman’s heroics as Leer – who surpassed the 1,000-point mark one night earlier – torched the Titans’ defense for 11 first-quarter points.
The Ghosts actually appeared to be on their way to a rout after Chynna West found Jess Schmidt cutting to the hole for an easy bucket that gave Abington a 13-2 lead midway through the opening quarter.
But suddenly and without warning, the Titans came to life.
First it was Kaewell burying a baseline trey, and then it was Schneider hitting nothing but net on a baseline jumper just inside the arc.When Mummert found Schneider cutting to the hole for an easy basket, it was a 13-9 game.
“We came out flat, and we didn’t want to have the same thing happen that happened two years ago when we lost by 40 points,” Vass said of a 45-14 South loss to Abington on Jan. 18, 2008. “We have the confidence in ourselves that we could come back.”
Another Leer basket – this one with an assist from Peal to finish off the fast break - put the Ghosts on top 17-10. Mummert answered with a putback, but Shectman scored as time was winding down to give the Ghosts a 19-12 lead at the end of one quarter.
In the second quarter, foul shooting kept the Titans close as they connected on just one field goal – a Schneider trey – but buried 11-of-12 from the charity stripe, and the Ghosts led by just three (29-26) at the intermission.
“It was extremely frustrating,” Leer said. “I think we showed (early) in the first quarter that we could really control the game, and all of a sudden, we stopped playing the right way, and we went back to some bad habits.
“This year we have really, really focused on playing help defense, and we just started playing right up on them. We weren’t doing things as a team, we were all on separate pages, and I think that’s what killed us.”
It was a 31-30 game after a Schaefer bucket, but Leer answered at the other end. Back-to-back baskets by Shectman – which included a wide open trey – put the Ghosts on top 39-30 midway through the third quarter.
“They might have watched a tape – either I’m off or I’m on, so they might have seen that I’ve been off a lot and thought not to guard me,” Shectman said. “I was up from my slump of last night.
“I must have missed 10 threes, but today I was getting my feet ready, and I had a lot of time. They just weren’t coming to me, so it was easy.”
Down but hardly out, the Titans came roaring back.
Brooke Eife turned a steal into a layup, and after a pair of Abington misses, Vass sank a pair from the foul line. An Abington turnover set the stage for a Schaefer bucket, and the Titans were within three (39-36).
The Titans took their first lead (42-41) after Mummert, who was a presence in the paint, sank a pair from the foul line with 11 seconds remaining. That lead lasted all of nine seconds as Shectman buried a long range shot at the buzzer.
The fourth quarter was more of the same, and the Titans rallied from four down to knot the score 51-51 after a Vass trey. Peal answered with a 7-0 run of her own with the final bucket capping a textbook fastbreak (Leer assist) that put the Ghosts on top 58-51.
Peal had nine of her 17 points in the pivotal fourth quarter.
“My coach always tells me to let the game come to me,” the sophomore guard said. “In the first half, I wasn’t trying to rush things and just throwing shots up.
“I just let the game come to me and got my shots.”
The Titans staged one last comeback but couldn’t quite get over the hump.
“Some people thought we were going to get blown out today, and we wanted to come out and prove ourselves,” Vass said. “I think we definitely did that, but it still hurts.
“We lost by two, and we thought we could have had it. We’re not taking it lightly.”
At least one person wasn’t surprised to see the Titans keep battling back.
“It’s kind of their mentality,” Mattern said. “They are fighters.
“These girls love playing basketball together, and they work hard every single day. I think it showed today in how they played. You look at their starting lineup and our starting lineup – we have no height. We just had a lot of heart and a lot of fight.”
While the Titans fell to 3-2 on the young season, the Ghosts improved to 5-0, but this one was anything but easy.
“It was crazy,” Marsh said. “I don’t even know what to say.
“You have to give them credit – they buried their shots, but our girls weren’t listening to us. They weren’t defending the perimeter the way we wanted them to defend it. They went back to bad habits, which is really crazy because we have really focused on defense this year.”
Earlier this season, the Ghosts held a very good St. Basil team to 32 points, and Neshaminy scored just 29 points against the Ghosts. William Tennent had 38 and Central Bucks West, 28 points.
The Titans had already scored more than any of Abington’s opponents this season by the end of the third quarter.
“I knew how scrappy they are and they would never quit, and they didn’t,” Marsh said. “They made a game of it. I told them sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and tonight we were lucky. We weren’t good. We were lucky.”
ABINGTON 59, CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 57
Central Bucks South (57) – Katelyn Schneider 4 2-2 12, Kaycee Schaeffer 3 4-4 12, Brittany Kaewell 2 3-4 9; Nicole Mummert 3 3-5 9, Gab Vass 3 5-6 13; Brooke Eife 1 0-0 2; Kelsey Herrmann 0 0-0 0; Taylor Vitelli 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 16 17-21 57
Abington (59) – Jamie Shectman 6 0-0 13; Aiyannah Peal 8 0-3 17; Jess Schmidt 1 0-0 2, Emily Leer 8 5-7 22; Cynna West 1 0-1 2; Sarah Listenbee 0 0-0 0; Lovell Farson 1 1-2 3; Carli Fitzgerald 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 25 6-13 59
Central Bucks South 12 14 16 15-57
Abington 19 10 14 16-59
3-point goals: CB South – Katelyn Schneider 2, Brittany Kaewell 2, Gab Vass 2, Kaycee Schaefer 2.
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