PW defeated Cedar Cliff in a PIAA 6A semifinal contest to earn a sport in next Saturday’s state title game in Hershey against Mount Lebanon. Photos provided courtesy of Larry Small. Check back for a gallery of photos. (Photo with WGBL provided by PW basketball)
PIAA 6A Semifinal
#1-1 PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 48, #3-3 CEDAR CLIFF 35
Abby Sharpe held the ball near midcourt as the final seconds ticked off the scoreboard clock, wearing a smile that told the story. The Colonials, thanks to their gutsy win over Cedar Cliff, were going to Hershey.
The jubilant celebration was about to begin. A season of lofty expectations will culminate next Saturday when the Colonials take on Mount Lebanon in the PIAA 6A state championship game in Hershey.
“It’s been a little bit like a unicorn – we keep saying every year we want to win a state championship, but now that it’s actually here, it just is surreal,” PW coach Dan Dougherty said. “Just the sheer joy at the end of the game and in the locker room, it’s sinking in – oh my gosh, we’re actually going to Hershey.”
“That’s been the goal,” senior Kaitlyn Flanagan said. “We would have been proud however far we came, but obviously, there would have been disappointment. We want to go all the way. It just feels great. We’re really pumped.”
“It’s just an insanely overwhelming feeling,” Sharpe said. “We sat at a team meeting before the season, before our first practice, setting our goals for the year.
“We said, ‘We want to win league, we want to win SOL, we want to win districts and then we want to go all the way to states. To be in this position that we’re actually going to the state final, it’s just a crazy overwhelming feeling. It just goes to show all of our hard work and all of our hours we put in – it’s such a fulfilling feeling, and we’re all really excited about it. We’re here, it’s time to take it all the way and finish it.”
“It’s kind of unbelievable,” senior Lainey Allen said. “I’m thankful that our hard work has paid off, especially senior year states. That’s unbelievable to me. I’m just so grateful we’re able to experience it and have our hard work pay off over the past four years.”
The final score suggests this was another easy win for the Colonials, but this one was a war, forcing the players – who were minus four-year starter Jordyn Thomas for the second straight game – to dig deep
“I just think it comes from the confidence everyone has in each other,” Sharpe said. “We all know that if someone is in some sort of trouble, the next person steps up.”
In a game full of pivotal moments, the sequence that all but sealed the win came in the final minutes of the game with the Colonials battling not only a Colts’ squad that refused to go away but serious foul trouble.
The Colts – who trailed by as many as 14 in the third quarter – trimmed PW’s lead to seven with five minutes remaining and had a chance to get even closer. But Lainey Allen delivered a block and came up with possession, prompting coach Dan Dougherty to call a quick timeout.
The Colonials responded with back-to-back baskets on drives by Erin Daley and Flanagan to regain control of the game. When asked about the plays he’d drawn up in the timeout, Dougherty laughed.
“I can’t take credit for anything there,” the PW coach said. “We’re running our basic man offense there, which is just a lot of reads. Erin Daley makes the perfect read, keeps it, scores a layup out of it.
“A lot of times what teams try to do against us is they start to become super aggressive on Kate (Flanagan) and super aggressive on Abby (Sharpe). The ball gets passed backwards, attack the basket and finish through contact. It was a physical game, and I thought we finished through contact very well.”
For Daley, it was just a matter of executing a play she’d executed before.
“It’s usually with Jordyn (Thomas), but I said to Lainey (Allen) – I’m going to cross keep it,” Daley said. “We practice it all the time. I know that on the inbound they were so used to fighting over the screen because they wanted to trap the ball, and I knew in my mind it was going to be there, and it was.
“Even though they were coming out to foul us, we still were looking for those layups. We weren’t going to take anything that wasn’t necessarily wide open but just what we practiced and what we knew we could execute off the play.”
Flanagan put the finishing touches on the big win, burying 5-of-6 at the foul line and turning a steal into a layup in the final 2:03 of the contest.
“She’s going to Holy Cross for a reason,” Dougherty said of his floor general. “A lot of coaches and people in the know – (they) know how talented she is.
“If she’s not a first team all-state kid, I don’t know who’s beating her out for that because you don’t have to score 20 points to win a game.. She just dominates the game as a point guard. You want to overplay her, (she’ll) dish to Lainey, she’ll dish to Erin. It’s fun to watch.
“What you need in a game like this – it gets loud out there, you need a coach on the floor. She knows what everyone is supposed to do. She tells everyone what to do, and it won us the game in the second half.”
Not to be overlooked was PW’s tenacious defensive effort, keeping the Colts off the scoreboard for a four-minute stretch after a basket by Sam Reilly with 5:12 remaining made it a 35-28 game.
“TJ DeLucia and I really work hard on film, and from the minute we knew we had this team and we broke down film, the kids immediately took in the game plan,” Dougherty said. “Their posts don’t really look to shoot the ball. You’ve got to deny the guards on the screen and roll. Switch if you need to, but there in the fourth quarter, I thought they just locked into it.
“Every team is going to go to their go-to man offense, and that’s their go-to man offense. We’ve been practicing it for two straight days, and they just locked down in the fourth quarter.”
Early on, the Colonials opened up a 6-2 lead after a Daley putback, and after the Colts pulled to within one, The Colonials reeled off seven straight points that included a pair of Sharpe foul shots, and back-to-back baskets by Allen – the second after a Flanagan steal.
“There’s nerves when you come into a game like today,” Dougherty said. “I thought on a big court and a big feel kind of thing – let Lainey run the floor, let Abby run the floor, try and get an easy basket.
“Jordyn Thomas isn’t playing for the second straight game, and we’re nervous too, but I think just running up and down the floor kind of works out some of those nerves, play a little fast pace, and if the baskets go in, the other teams get a little tight.”
Behind eight points from Sharpe and six from Allen, the Colonials led 16-8 after one quarter. They took a 25-11 advantage into halftime.
“We were really pumped up coming into this game because we’re just so close, and we really wanted this,” Sharpe said. “Before the game, we said we just have to play our game, and we like to play fast and we like to play in transition.
“I think we did a really good job of rebounding the ball especially and looking up right away, and that gave us those fast breaks and an early lead and gave us momentum going into the rest of the game.”
The Colonials led 33-19 after Sharpe turned a steal into an easy bucket late in the third quarter, but the Colts didn’t go down quietly. The Colonials, however, would not be denied.
Flanagan and Sharpe both had 15 points to lead the Colonials. Allen added 12 points and 12 rebounds in a dominant effort under the basket in the absence of Thomas.
“They’re a very physical team, and I think that’s good for us because it builds us up,” Allen said. “When getting boards, with our height, we keep it high – don’t put it on the ground, don’t bring it down. If we keep it high and be strong with it up high, we’re good.
“I think we’re all playing harder for Jordyn (Thomas). Especially Erin because she’s mostly a guard. I think she’s really stepped up as a post player, and that helps me out a lot. I think we’ve all been able to step up just because of Jordyn.”
When it was over, several PW players were toting ice packs, and there was no mistaking that win number 33 in a perfect season was a physical battler.
“We are pretty beat up,” Daley said. “Just knowing when we fall down, our teammate will be right there to pick us up. All my teammates will give the same amount of aggression that I will, the same amount of heart, the same amount of hard work. We just love playing together.”
For one more week, the Colonials will play together with the biggest prize on the line in next Saturday’s state title game.
Cedar Cliff 8-8-8-11 35
Plymouth Whitemarsh 16-9-8-15 48
Cedar Cliff (35) – Taylor Ferraro 1 2-3 4; Sydney Weyant 1 0-0 3; Ryan Kaercher 2 0-0 4; Sam Reilly 1 2-6 4; Olivia Jones 6 8-9 20. TOTALS 11 12-18 35.
Plymouth Whitemarsh (48) – Kaitlyn Flanagan 4 6-11 15; Erin Daley 2 2-2 6; Abby Sharpe 5 5-5 15; Lainey Allen 5 2-4 12. TOTALS 16 15-22 48.
3-point goals: Cedar Cliff – Sydney Weyant; PW – Kaitlyn Flanagan.
That’s foul – The Colonials overcome some serious foul woes in Friday’s semifinal win.
With 2:28 remaining in the first quarter, Erin Daley was whistled for her second foul and sat out remainder of the frame. She returned to start the second quarter and played the entire quarter without picking up her third foul.
“You know, when you get into foul trouble, you definitely have to play smarter, but it doesn’t take away how aggressive I still plan to be,” Daley said. “I can guard you 1v1 and not foul you all day long – I do it all the time.
“I’m not going to go out there and play scared. That would mess up my game mentally on the defensive end because that’s such a strong passion of mine when I go into the game.”
Proof that Daley doesn’t play scared came when – with 3:30 remaining in the second quarter – she stepped into the path of fab freshman Olivia Jones and took a charge.
“I saw my teammate get beat, and I said, ‘I’m going to slide over and step up,’” Daley said. “I just, in that moment, had the confidence that – all right, it’s all in or all out because you’re either stepping up and getting a charge or you’re going to half do it and you’re getting a foul, so I just went for it.”
Daley picked up her fourth foul with 1:55 remaining in the third quarter. She remained an important presence on the court until she was whistled for her fifth with less than two minutes remaining when the outcome had been long since decided.”
Lainey Allen also was plagued by fouls, drawing her third with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter and picking up her fourth with close to six minutes remaining in regulation.
“Everyone is always ready to step up,” Fiona Gooneratne said. “(Angelina) Balcer gave great minutes coming off the bench. We’re really well rounded, and it shows how versatile we can be.”
The little things that aren’t so little – With Jordyn Thomas sidelined for the second straight game, Fiona Gooneratne stepped into the starting lineup. For the second straight game, the feisty senior guard played the full 32 minutes.
“We worked really hard on the game plan as we always do but especially hard on this one,” Gooneratne said. “Just to see it all come together and be able to get that win and such a team win too – it feels really good.”
“She just battles,” Dougherty said of Gooneratne. “She’s so tough, and she’s battling down there, and while she may not be getting the rebounds, she’s battling her girl from getting the rebound, and that was a huge difference.”
A rare three-sport athlete, Gooneratne is a four-year varsity player in lacrosse and is missing out on preseason with her squad.
“I think she’s really proud and supportive of our season,” the senior guard said of lacrosse coach Ellen Reilly. “I’ll be there when I get there.”
Hershey awaits…in a week – The Colonials will have a much-needed break before facing Mount Lebanon in next Saturday’s state title game. Seven days to be exact.
To say it’s a welcome break would be an understatement.
“Usually, it’s the night before we can enjoy it, and the next day we get right back down to it,” senior Kaitlyn Flanagan said. “It so much of this – emotionally up and down. Having this week feels like a whole vacation, but we’ll be working hard.”
In Friday’s other semifinal contest, Mount Lebanon, the District 7 champion, defeated District 3 champion Central Dauphin 41-35. Senior Ashleigh Connor, a Saint Louis University commit, scored 27 points to lead the Blue Devils.
Mount Lebanon brings a 27-1 record into the state title game.
“I know how good Mount Lebanon is,” Dougherty said. “I think this is probably the state championship a lot of people anticipated. It will be a huge test, but just the accomplishment of it – I was just telling them, ‘You’re undefeated, you’ve beaten everyone in the area. This is a true East versus West state championship. We joke with the girls – we beat the two Catholic League champs, we beat the Delaware state champs, we rolled through the SOL and District One. We haven’t gotten to enjoy any of it, so I’m so glad the state championship isn’t until next Saturday.
“We are enjoying this tomorrow and Sunday. We’re getting Shamrock Shakes on the way home, and we’re going to enjoy this because to get to 33-0 in a basketball community like PW – the fan base that’s here tonight with the WBGL and all the community members that have been following Plymouth Whitemarsh basketball since the ’63 championship. The other night Jacqui Frazier is at our game from the ’77-80 team. To have that level of support has been so special.”
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