Never underestimate the value of a standout point guard.
Cheltenham coach Bob Schaefer certainly doesn’t.
With the Lady Panthers’ district playoff hopes hanging in the balance in Saturday’s quarterfinal game against West Chester Henderson, the veteran coach put the ball in Shayla Felder’s hands and asked her to do what only a select few players are able to do – carry the team on her back.
It’s the same thing he’s asked his point guards to do for close to three decades when the outcome of a big game is on the line.
“You could go way back 20-some years, and I have been on my point guard at every practice, every game because she’s your voice out there on the court,” Schaefer said. “She has to direct the team and manage the team because you can’t be out there on the court.
“Our point guards know what’s expected of them, and they carry a lot of weight. The point guard gets yelled at because a forward throws the ball away because the point guard didn’t go and get the ball from her. That’s just the way it works.
“We play a lot of good teams including Henderson, and they don’t have the ball handlers to support the other players, and, therefore, the other players are coming out of position and that throws them off against a good team.”
Felder had the ball in her hands the better part of the second half.
“Everybody was telling me to ‘suck it up, suck it up’ because I was getting watery-eyed,” Felder admitted afterwards. “I didn’t know what to do. There was so much pressure on me that I had to handle the ball, I had to do this, I had to do that.
“There was so much depending on me.”
The diminutive guard was equal to the task. Felder, who scored a game-high 27 points in her team’s 61-52 win, repeatedly picked just the right moment to take the ball to the hoop for either the shot or the assist, and she accounted for 13 of her team’s 19 points in the fourth quarter. She had assists on the Lady Panthers’ only other two baskets in the frame.
“She’s fantastic,” Schaefer said. “She’s quick, she’s agile, she has great control of the ball, and she has learned to protect it pretty well. She’s such a great foul shooter too.
“I called one or two timeouts to tell her, ‘Don’t let anybody else handle the ball. I want the ball in your hands. You get rid of it and get it right back.’ The truth be told, they’re going to foul, and we want her to be on the foul line. She was the MVP (of the SOL American Conference), and she’s lived up to it.”
Felder connected on eight-of-nine from the charity stripe – seven-of-eight in the pivotal fourth quarter, and she is the most recent in a long line of standout point guards developed by Schaefer.
“You know how Penn State is known as ‘Linebacker U?’” the veteran coach asked. “We like to think of ourselves as ‘Point Guard High.’”
It’s hard to argue with that claim.
The Lady Panthers’ Wall of Fame includes six point guards who surpassed the 1,000-point milestone, including Pam Bryant, Dana Mills, Stephanie Hector, Brandi Butler, Stacey Smalls and Andrea Jones.
“One of the dilemmas I have with AAU – our girls go to AAU and our point guards come back with an attitude they’re out there to distribute the ball to the scoring stars,” Schaefer said. “For us, we need our point guards to be double-figure scorers, so that whole transition from just protecting the ball and distributing it to others has to be expanded to – you have to be able to generate points for us. Obviously, they all have.
“We’re very fortunate this year. We really have three kids who can play point guard for us, and we have some nice kids down at the jayvee that will be point guards, but we make sure we’re going to have point guards like that.”
Point guards like Felder who can singlehandedly keep their team afloat when the going gets tough.
The battle for ninth – Ninth place has never sounded so good.
Eight District One AAAA teams were in the hunt for the coveted ninth seed and a berth in the state tournament. Four were eliminated on Saturday.
Abington recovered from its disappointing loss to Henderson to down Norristown 53-45, setting up a date with Chester at home on Wednesday. The Clippers eliminated Council Rock South, downing the Golden Hawks 50-42. Emily Nowicke paced Rock South with 15 points.
“We’re going to take it one game at a time,” Abington coach Dan Marsh said. “We have set our goals. We want to get to states, and it’s one and done now.
“We’re having good practices, and the girls are working hard, and they want it. We’ll see what happens.”
Emily Leer scored a game-high 15 points, but Liz Layton stole the spotlight, contributing 14 points and 15 rebounds in a standout performance.
“She was huge for us,” Marsh said. “The girls just keep working hard, and that’s all we want them to do – play hard and see what happens.
“I would love to get back to states and finish the season the right way.”
The Eagles were led by the 15-point effort of senior Brittney Rose while Cashae Hinton added 10 points.
Owls take flight – Bensalem roared out of the gate to an 18-0 lead at the end of one quarter in its ninth seed playoff game against Perkiomen Valley. The Owls were sparked by the hot hand of Kristen Gilroy, who finished with a game-high 14 points.
“We played a match-up zone, and we played great defense,” coach Don Bogan said. “They have a point guard (Megan Finn) who’s very good. She likes to penetrate and do things, but we didn’t let her penetrate. We matched up with them on the wings and just played very good defense.
“I was kind of shocked. I knew they lost one of their players (Courtney Formica) the game before, but I in no way thought we would come out and play as aggressively as we did.”
The Vikings came back to outscore the Owls 20-8 in the second quarter, trimming Bensalem’s lead to 26—20 at the intermission.
“In the second quarter, Sharmane (Hall) got her third foul,” Bogan said. “We didn’t handle the ball well, and we just collapsed.”
The two teams were deadlocked 40-40 in the fourth quarter, but the Owls reeled off the last seven points of the game for the big win.
Hall finished the game with 11 points while Jackie Deegler added 10.
The Owls will travel to Great Valley on Wednesday night for a must-win game in their battle to clinch the final playoff spot.
That’s foul – Don’t expect to see Chante Evans get herself in foul trouble anytime soon.
There’s no denying that West Chester Henderson’s 6-2 center is a special talent, and apparently the refs who officiated the Warriors’ two most recent games think so too. Evans was whistled for just one foul in Abington’s 56-47 loss to Henderson, and she had only two in Cheltenham’s 61-52 win over the Warriors in Saturday’s quarterfinal round.
“I think they attach value to Evans, and they know if she’s in foul trouble, Henderson would have no shot and lose by 30, so they call less on her,” Abington coach Dan Marsh said. “They see it in their eyes as they don’t want to be a factor in the game when really they become a factor.”
While Evans apparently was rarely guilty of fouling, the Ghosts weren’t nearly as fortunate.
Three Abington players – Aijannah Peal, Tess Johns and Jen Kelly - fouled out in the Ghosts’ loss, and Emily Leer had four fouls. All told, the Ghosts were whistled for 28 fouls while the Warriors committed just seven. The Warriors took 37 foul shots, and the Ghosts, only four.
“I’ll be generous and say that eight to 10 of those shots were when we did foul at the end of the game,” Marsh said. “To be perfectly honest, we don’t talk about referees.
“I mentioned it in passing at the end of the game because I wanted to reinforce to my girls why it’s important to get a top eight seed and two home games. The last thing we want to do is give our kids excuses.”
Marsh admitted that Evans, who scored 28 points in the win over the Ghosts, was a force to contend with in the paint.
“I think one-on-one, she is probably the toughest girl to guard I have ever seen,” the Abington coach said. “Not to take anything away from her – she played very well against us, but when you allow her to throw her body around like that as big and as strong as she is – what are you going to do?
“I don’t think there’s anybody as big and strong as she is.”
That’s foul, Part II – Speaking of foul woes.
Cheltenham looked as though it was on its way to a rout of West Chester Henderson as the Lady Panthers – behind the hot hands of Monet Constant and Shayla Felder – sprinted to a 13-1 lead less than four minutes into Saturday’s district quarterfinal showdown.
“From there on, we couldn’t get out of their end of the floor without a foul or a basket by their big girl (Chante Evans),” coach Bob Schaefer said. “Once both Dayna (McCrewell) and Jenna (Peoples) were off the floor with three fouls, I knew we wouldn’t be able to play with them, so from there on, it was a matter of – we wanted to take the game out of the officials’ hands.
“By holding the ball, that made it difficult for the officials to do any further damage to our team by calling fouls on us.”
McCrewell and Peoples both picked up their fourth fouls less than two minutes into the third quarter. Down a pair of starters, the Lady Panthers watched their eight-point halftime lead evaporate. By the end of the quarter, it was a 42-39 game. Schaefer reinserted McCrewell and Peoples into the lineup at the start of the fourth quarter.
“We couldn’t come down and play serious offense because they would call us for an offensive foul,” the Lady Panthers’ coach said. “We basically spread it out and wanted to run the clock down.
“When we had to score, we had to go and make a move and get a basket.”
That’s when Felder stepped to the fore and took over the game.
The Lady Panthers will face Lower Merion in a district semifinal game on Wednesday at Norristown High School at 7:30 p.m. The 6 p.m. game will feature Downingtown East against Downingtown West.
Down but no out – The shocker of the day on Saturday was Downingtown West’s upset of third-seeded Council Rock North in a district quarterfinal game. The Indians led 13-12 at the end of one quarter but then managed just four points in the second quarter as the Whippets took a 21-17 lead into halftime.
The Whippets held a 34-33 advantage heading into the final quarter when they went on a 17-9 tear to earn a 51-42 win. Sarah Kiely led the Indians with 15 points while Amanda Donia had 23 for the Whippets.
Central Bucks East, which trailed 43-37 at the end of three quarters, limited second-seeded Downingtown East to just four points in the fourth quarter but managed just five points of its own in a 47-42 loss to the Cougars. Caitlin Vasey paced the Patriots with 11 points.
Rock North and CB East will square off in a battle for seeding on Wednesday at Council Rock South at 7 p.m. Henderson will face Upper Darby in the other consolation round game. Upper Darby fell to Lower Merion 48-29.
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