Plymouth Whitemarsh defeated Spring-Ford to capture the District One 6A title on Saturday at Temple University. Photos provided courtesy of Larry Small. Check back for a gallery of photos. All SOS photo galleries for GIRLS BASKETBALL can be viewed by clicking HERE.
#1 PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 49, #11 SPRING-FORD 31
For a year, it had been the driving force behind everything the Colonials were working for.
It, of course, was the season-ending loss at Spring-Ford in the District One 6A championship game last season. It was a game that ate at every player coming back for the 2021-22 season, it was a blueprint for the coaching staff of what this team needed to do to take the last step.
It was all Plymouth Whitemarsh could think about at each stop along the way this winter.
It all came together on Saturday when the top-seeded Colonials finally got their district championship and got a measure of payback in doing so as they topped 11th seed Spring-Ford 49-31 at Temple to secure the District One 6A title.
“This whole season, we’ve prepared ourselves to win this game against anyone,” PW senior Lainey Allen said. “Because it was Spring-Ford, we were hyped. We had the energy, we were ready to go. We prepared, we worked hard for this, and we got it done.”
With one final bounce out of Erin Daley’s palm, the ball rolled away across the Liacouras Center court.
It was no longer needed, an afterthought as Daley met Kaitlyn Flanagan in an embrace, met soon after by Abby Sharpe and Fiona Gooneratne and the rest of the Colonials as the final horn finally sounded. A lot had gone into that moment and a team that’s been lowkey on celebrating but extremely high on focus could finally let it go.
The mission was complete.
“It felt even better because we did it right back to them,” Daley said. “We felt they took it away from us last year, and I think that is really what was hard on us – not only did they take the district championship, but they ended our season.
“We did it for all of us here and we did it for last year’s seniors too.”
For all the experience the Colonials have, it was still their first time on the big stage at Temple. Flanagan said the team tried to get through any nerves it had during warm-ups, but they still lingered a bit once the ball was actually tipped.
The Colonials never trailed, and the game was only briefly tied for a few possessions in the first quarter, but it took some time for the SOL champions to start playing like themselves. Helping set the tone was a more aggressive start from Flanagan, who netted four first quarter points on a pair of drives to accent the first two of what would be an eight-assist performance.
“I have to look for myself sometimes,” Flanagan said. “It did end up helping later on, it got my teammates open when they realized they were going to have to guard me.”
Flanagan’s second layup gifted the Colonials an 11-4 lead eight minutes in, but three minutes into the second quarter, that lead had been eroded to just four points as Spring-Ford closed within 13-9. While this year’s Rams are a much different team than last year’s, they are still a talented group and were seemingly getting over any nerves they’d had to start.
Even the best defenses have weak spots, and on Saturday, the Colonials found Spring-Ford’s, thanks to a brilliant second quarter from Sharpe. With the Rams doing well to block off the paint, there was space in between the 3-point arc and the lane to take advantage of, which Sharpe did, scoring 11 of her game-high 16 in the period.
“Our bigs set such good screens, my girl got stuck a couple times, and the midrange is something we work on,” Sharpe said. “I’m confident so when I saw the next girl coming up to help, I told myself ‘Just pull it.’ My teammates kept telling me to keep shooting that shot, and they kept going in, so it was really good momentum.”
A basket by Flanagan kick-started a run to end the half that Sharpe just owned as the junior reeled off the next nine points. None were more vital than the buzzer-beating three she hit off a great dish by Flanagan after the senior floor general sucked two defenders in on a drive, shot-faked, kept just enough of her shoe on the floor to prevent a travel and found Sharpe for the catch-and-shoot.
“That’s part of the reason a lot of college coaches would love to have her on their team,” Colonials’ coach Dan Dougherty said of Sharpe. “That three she hits is such an emotional lift going into the second half. I called a timeout right before she shot two free throws, I thought it was a point to catch our breath, she comes out of it and hits both free throws that allows us to get into a press, and she was absolutely special in that second quarter.”
That timeout, which came with 53 seconds left in the quarter, was a pivotal moment for the Colonials. Daley said it was a lift to hear the coaches reassure their belief in the players and for Sharpe, a good moment of clarity.
“Personally, I think I was in my head a little too much in the first quarter, but my teammates told me to gather myself and remember it’s just a game and it’s just basketball,” Sharpe said. “This team, with our communication, we’re so close, and so I think that really got all those nerves away, and by the second quarter, we were playing how we normally play and it led on from there.”
Having a roster full of smart, focused players eases the need for the coaches to convince them to buy into roles or make sacrifices. Daley, for example, could have easily hunted stats on Saturday once the Colonials’ lead expanded in the third, and instead, she finished with four points and still managed to have a massive impact on the game with her defensive work.
“Coach D on the sideline telling us he believed in us, I think picked us all up,” Daley said. “It let us go out there, each play our game and be the powerhouse we are.”
With some groups, setting a specific goal like winning a district title can turn into tunnel vision that starts taking any enjoyment out of it and, occasionally, breaks a team before it even gets there.
For this team, it was never a problem.
“We’re family,” Daley said. “We have each other’s backs. We’re out there together and that’s the most important thing for us.”
That feeling extends to the bench.
Finding a role and giving their all to it is an area junior Angelina Balcer has excelled in this season. The guard knows she may not play a lot, but any minutes she can give means time off the floor for Flanagan, and Balcer has embraced her task readily.
“My main focus is positivity, and my teammates – I want to make sure they’re good on the court,” Balcer said. “I always make sure they feel confident on the court. It’s my job to make sure they know they’re meant to be there.”
Gooneratne, a senior guard who has been the team’s first player off the bench all season, has equally accepted a role focused more on support.
“My focus is always defense,” Gooneratne said. “A big part of our practice plan coming in was strong close-outs and knowing what they were trying to get out of their offense, so when I went out there, I knew I had to do whatever I could to disrupt that.
“When I’m out there, I’m usually with four starters, and they always pick me up and are so supportive, so I try to repay that by doing the best I can in whatever I’m asked to do.”
Sharpe’s flurry had opened up a 24-9 lead at the half thanks to the Colonials’ defense showing what a year of practice had done for it. After getting exposed by Spring-Ford’s mis-match hunting offense last winter, the Colonials have devoted a segment of every practice to their man-to-man defense.
“We knew whenever they get switched onto a forward, it’s kind of their ‘go-time,’ so we really wanted to keep them in front,” Thomas said. “We couldn’t come off our feet, which we can do by just playing solid defense.”
A usually free-flowing and free-firing Rams offense seemed hesitant at times Saturday, almost as if they were seeing shadows or anticipating a furious close-out they couldn’t see coming and passing up looks they would have taken against most other opponents.
“It was a big part of our plan,” the 6-foot-2 forward said. “We drilled in close-outs where you were in their face, they can’t see, they can’t shoot. I think we executed and got in their heads. They were missing shots, we got rebounds and were able to play the way we wanted.”
Allen and Flanagan kept hammering it home after halftime. Flanagan doled five of her eight helpers after the break while Allen had six points in the third and added four more in the final stanza as she finished with 12 total points.
A baseline drive by Daley put PW ahead 30-9, and while the Rams would make a small run to get that back to 30-17, the Colonials had come too far to let anything get in their way.
“At that point, it was us playing defense against the clock and against them,” Daley said. “We knew we were talking, switching everything, and defense is our strong suit to the point that where it was at in the game, we felt like it was over because that’s what we’re best at.
“If you can’t score on us early in the game, we’re sure not letting you score on us at the end of the game.”
The emotional celebration when the final horn sounded reflected the fact that attaining this goal was a long time coming.
“The excitement you saw at the end was the culmination of four years,” Dougherty said. “This year’s seniors are the ones that came in the year after the Taylor O’Brien, Ali Diamond and Lauren Fortescue class that kind of got this ball rolling.
“Their freshman year we lost to (Cardinal) O’Hara in states when we missed a layup at the buzzer. We were right there freshman year. Sophomore year we lost to Pennsbury in the district semifinals and then we lost states to COVID. We were right there then too.
“Sophomore year for the seniors was when Erin Daley, Abby Sharpe and Ang Balcer became part of the program too. That year’s team was so good, but we lost Lainey Allen to injury, and in the state playoffs, we lost Erin Daley to illness.”
One year ago, in the COVID-shortened season, PW fell to Spring-Ford in the district title game, and only the winner advanced to the state tournament.
“Sure enough, two of the people to reach out to me immediately tonight were Anna McTamney and Gabby Cooper,” Dougherty said of two of last year’s seniors. “I told them – ‘I wish we could have given you two medals tonight too’ because we accomplished what we did tonight because of them two.
“That excitement after the game – it’s four years, and it’s always being in the shadow of boys’ sports at our school. It’s a big release of all that hard work.”
There’s a new mission on the table for the Colonials now: a state title. Daley and Flanagan said the district title was an accomplishment they wanted to celebrate, but with the new state playoff meaning a quick turnaround, they’re also ready to get back to work.
“Rest and film,” Allen said to a shared laugh with her teammates.
“It’s something we can lean back on,” Flanagan added. “We want to enjoy this, but we also have a new goal of another championship, we all know that, and we’re all bought in.”
Oh, and there was one more reason to celebrate on Saturday. It was Thomas’ birthday and the senior – who got a full-team serenade in the locker room after the win – was hard-pressed to think of too many better presents than the one she received by being handed the District One trophy.
“It has to be number one,” Thomas said. “Putting in four years of work to get here, it makes it all worth it.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh (29-0, 16-0 SOL) will host District 3’s sixth place team, Manheim Township, in Tuesday’s opening round of the PIAA 6A Tournament.
Spring-Ford 4-5-8-14 31
Plymouth Whitemarsh 11-13-11-14 49
Spring-Ford (13) – Anna Azzara 5 2-2 13, Katie Tiffan 1 1-2 4, Mac Pettinelli 2 0-0 4, Aaliyah Solliday 4 0-0 10. Totals: 12 3-4 31
Plymouth Whitemarsh (49) – Kaitlyn Flanagan 3 5-9 11, Erin Daley 1 2-2 4, Abby Sharpe 6 3-4 16, Lainey Allen 6 0-5 12, Jordyn Thomas 2 2-3 6. Totals: 18 12-23 49
3-point goals:: PW – Sharpe, SF – Solliday 2, Azzara, Tiffan
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