Thirteen years ago, Cheltenham travelled to Shillington for a PIAA semifinal showdown against Northampton’s Konkrete Kids. Heavy favorites to win the state crown, the district champion Lady Panthers – ranked 22nd in the nation in USA Today at the time – lost 64-62 in a game marred by controversy. On Tuesday night – 12 years and 356 days later, Cheltenham travelled to that same site for the first time since that fateful night. The Lady Panthers’ opponent? Northampton. This time, the Lady Panthers wrote a different ending.
By Mary Jane Souder
The smiling, happy faces of the Lady Panthers as they walked off the court after Tuesday night’s 43-38 win over Northampton in a PIAA Class AAAA second round game were a welcome sight indeed for fans of Cheltenham basketball.
It was a jubilant scene that effectively erased some of the sting for the coaches as well as the fans who were in attendance on that unforgettable night 13 years ago when the Konkrete Kids stunned the district champion Lady Panthers 64-62 at that same venue.
“This was a real nice healing for anyone who experienced that night because this was not at all like that,” coach Bob Schaefer said. “This was just a great basketball game – players and fans cheering for their teams and respecting everybody.”
A lot has changed since that gray, dreary night in 1996 when the Lady Panthers saw their dream of winning a state title go up in smoke. Some of those players are married with children of their own. One is a head coach in the SOL. Two of Cheltenham’s assistant coaches from that squad are now watching the games from the stands instead of the bench.
Still, it was impossible to ignore the feeling of familiarity when this year’s squad travelled to Shillington for a second round state playoff game against Northampton.
“I have to admit I really worked at trying not to think about it, but it was a little eerie walking in for the coaches,” Schaefer said. “A lot of people started on it as soon as we found out we were playing there. I tried to put a positive spin on it that we would see the teams on the other side of the bracket (in the second game of the double header).
“I was really trying not to focus on that aspect.”
‘That aspect’ was not the loss the Lady Panthers absorbed at the hands of an underdog Konkrete Kid squad. After all, upsets happen every day in the world of sports. What Schaefer didn’t want to revisit was how his players lost out on a chance to pursue their dream of a state title.
In that 1996 contest, the Lady Panthers were whistled for 30 fouls and two technical fouls. Three of their starters – Shaunti Riley, Gloria Schley and Lisa Terry – fouled out, several others had four fouls.
Again, it wasn’t so much the number of fouls but rather the seemingly inexplicable reasons they were called and the suggestion by some that certain players were targeted.
“We really haven’t seen that kind of attitude anywhere since then,” Schaefer said. “I know there were a lot of letters that went to the PIAA. I don’t know for a fact, but I think the word got out about what had happened, and whether it really happened the way the Cheltenham fans felt it happened, at least the people involved were made aware of a sensitivity that existed there and made some kind of effort to not have that type of situation ever again.”
Brandi Butler Millis, the star point guard for that 1996 squad who earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Richmond, returned to the scene of her final high school game on Tuesday night. She still marvels at the passionate response that night evoked – both then and now.
“I was just talking about it to my husband, who didn’t know me back then, and I told him, ‘You don’t understand. Fans who just came up to watch a game wrote letters, made phone calls,’” she said. “How many people take time after a game to write a letter? There were letters written, there were phone calls made.’”
Lynn Carroll, now the head coach at Souderton, was a junior on that squad.
“It was 13 years ago, and it’s unfortunately one of the memories that really still stands out for me,” she said. “We were supposed to be the state champions. We were supposed to be the state champs.
“I was one of the ones who did not foul out, and looking over at the bench and seeing three of my friends who were all seniors sitting there and thinking, ‘We have to do this. We have to do it for them.’”
Carroll, who Schaefer remembers as one of the quietest players on the team, was whistled for a technical that still has her puzzled.
“It was written about in the newspaper, and I remember people calling me and saying, ‘That must have been a misprint,’” she said. “I had my moments where I was a hothead, but I can tell you what the ref said to me – ‘I thought you were going to hit the girl.’
“Now, I’m not hitting anybody. If I get in a fight, it’s bad news for me. I’m running if somebody is swinging.
“We could not catch a break. When you’re in the game and on the court, you might get upset at a call, but you’re not thinking about it, but it was afterwards when everybody was saying, ‘You guys were really treated unfairly’ that it started to sink in that we had something stolen from us.”
Some of Carroll’s most poignant memories of that night were of the seniors on the team and her immense disappointment on their behalf.
“I remember Gloria Schley fouled out,” Carroll said. “She was one of my favorite players I ever played with. She said something like ‘Pooch, you have got to get it done.’ I said, ‘Gloria, I promise you. We will win this game.’ That’s something I will never forget.
“The odds were definitely stacked up against us, but when your teammates are on the bench, and they want to be out there, you’re trying to do everything you can to make it happen. It was terrible. As a 16-year-old I felt like something was stolen, and over time, I still feel that way. It hasn’t lessened. I still feel like something was taken from us.”
According to Millis, the Lady Panthers turned in a heroic effort.
“People on the team were playing to their ultimate ability,” she said. “I remember every play we made was fantastic, and then the carpet would be pulled out from under us every time they (the refs) made a call.
“We knew everyone was against us. We knew we were the only power we had. We couldn’t rely on the refs. We couldn’t rely on anything else except our team and our coaches. I called my dad after the game (on Tuesday night) and said, ‘I still want to go back and replay that game.’ That’s the only frustrating thing. That was the best time of my life. High school basketball is the best time of your life. It’s tough to hear people talk about the effect that game had, and you can’t go back and do it all over.
“As much as I don’t really remember a lot of games, it comes back to me as people talk about it.”
And people still talk about it. Schaefer acknowledged that no one who was at that game has ever forgotten it.
“That experience made me realize how sometimes you feel like no matter what you do and no matter how hard you make it – in that situation, it just was not going to happen,” he said. “It was just a nightmare in that we couldn’t get out of their end without either a basket or a foul.”
A play that may have best captured the unusual calls, according to Schaefer, came when Butler was coasting in for an uncontested layup only to see the basket waved off for a foul against the Lady Panthers at midcourt.
“We were rolling as a team, we were on a march,” Schaefer said of his top-ranked squad. “We were on our way to our first state championship, but it never happened.”
If it sounds as though the Lady Panthers are simply looking to pass the blame, listen only to the observation of North Penn coach Maggie deMarteleire, who was in attendance that night. The veteran coach - then the head coach at Lansdale Catholic - had no rooting interest in the game but simply wanted to watch some high level basketball.
“The one thing I remember about that game is how unfair the officiating was to the point where it affected the outcome of the game,” she said. “At that high level of competition – to see that happen was terrible. I remember sitting there with a sick feeling and thinking, ‘This is not right.’ That stands out in my mind.
“You left there thinking something really bad had just happened.”
But the wonder of youth is that the disappointment the players felt was tempered by the genuine love and affection they had for each other.
“There are no words to describe what we have on this team,” Butler said after the loss. “Every person has their own personality, and it was a piece to the puzzle, and it fit, and it fit nicely.
“I have seen a lot of teams this year, and I have never seen a team with as many diverse people come together as one the way we did. Basketball is a neat sport – you don’t look at colors. You play as a team. Mr. Schaefer brings the attitude that, ‘We’re a team. We’re a family.’ You learn that from day one.”
So it was hardly a surprise to hear Schley offer this reflection several days after the season-ending loss.
“I never cry,” she said. “But I was crying (after the game) because we were never going to play together as a team.
“In school the next day – we might have looked down, but we would just joke around, slap each other on the hand two times, and it makes you forget about it because we still have each other. I would rather have them than a (state championship) trophy.”
That acceptance, according to Millis, came with the knowledge that their team had given everything they had and then some.
“It hit us – there was nothing we could have done,” she said. “It wasn’t like we didn’t play defense hard. When I coach now, I tell my players I have expectations that they’re going to go on the court like I did 15-20 years ago and play as hard as they can.
“People say, ‘Leave everything on the court.’ If you really do leave everything on the court, you can walk away from a game even having lost being okay with the loss. Turnovers are going to happen, missed foul shots are going to happen, but defensively, make sure you do everything in your power, and I think we did. That was the bottom line.”
The 1996 Lady Panthers didn’t win a state championship, and this year’s Cheltenham squad – the lone SOL team still standing – might not either. The important thing, according to Millis, is to make the most of every minute, every second on the court.
“Just reliving the playoffs in high school just brings you right back,” she said. “I wanted nothing more than to just be back. I have yet to watch a game of the Cheltenham girls where I don’t want to be on the court playing for them.
“I really do look back, and our team – and I’m sure every team has that feeling, but we weren’t really a bunch of superstars. Everyone just really worked hard. It was all about what Schaefer represents. It’s all about working hard at every practice – Saturday mornings, snow days, and at the end of the season, when the games really count, that’s what will pull you through.
“I don’t look back on that game and say, ‘Oh, the refs. Oh, this or that,’ but when people talk about it, that’s what they bring up. For me, it was just a bunch of girls coming together. You think of ‘Hoosiers.’ If anything, it helped us really bond during that game and play as more of a team than we ever would have if it hadn’t happened.”
While history can’t be re-written, it can be seen in a new and different light. Tuesday’s game with its new players - and some of those familiar faces from the past in attendance – helped soften the memories of that other night at Shillington 13 long, long years ago.
Thankfully, it’s a new and different era.
Editor’s Note: Mary Jane Souder was an outsider looking in during Cheltenham’s 1996 state title run. A sportswriter for the local newspaper, Souder followed the Lady Panthers’ every move for five days and wrote a feature chronicling life behind the scenes of the then state’s top-ranked team. Souder also covered Tuesday night’s rematch against Shillington.
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