Abington saw its season end in the PIAA 6A quarterfinals on Friday night. Abington/Archbishop Carroll photos courtesy of John Gleeson. Check back for a gallery of photos: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/f884733941
CLASS 6A
#12-3 ARCHBISHOP CARROLL 55, #1-9 ABINGTON 43
Everything seemed to be falling into place.
The Ghosts – with a pair of state tournament wins already to their credit – jumped out to an early six-point lead, and with time winding down in the second quarter, they upped their lead to eight when point guard Maya Johnson found Cire Worley for an easy hoop.
Taylor Wilson hit nothing but net on a 3-pointer in the closing seconds of the quarter, but the Ghosts still led 24-19 at halftime and stretched that to 26-19 when Worley somehow found her way through the defense for a bucket to open the third quarter.
A trip to the state semifinals – less than two quarters away – appeared to be well within the Ghosts’ grasp.
Worley’s basket, however, pretty much turned out to be their last hurrah as they did not score again until Worley burled a baseline 3-pointer with just over three minutes remaining in the third quarter. During that four-plus minute scoring drought, the Patriots turned the tables on the Ghosts, reeling on 15 unanswered points to go on top 34-26. Things were never quite the same again.
“This game went exactly as I thought it would except I thought that maybe we would be on the other end of (the score),” Abington coach Dan Marsh said. “It was a very good game – they shot the lights out.
“Our thinking coming into this game was they were very good at a lot of things, but I didn’t think they were great at anything. They were great tonight in a lot of areas, especially their 3-point shooting. Every miscue that we made – they made us pay with a three.”
A Worley 3-pointer pulled the Ghosts to within five, and it was a 34-31 game after she scored on a drive, but Carroll freshman Alexis Eberz scored on a cut to the hole, and by the time the quarter had ended, the Patriots led 40-32.
“I’ve told our kids a million times – if you guys ever go out there and leave it on the floor and you get beat, we’ll never be upset, and you should never hang your head,” Marsh said. “They were better tonight. It’s really that simple – they were better than us tonight. I don’t know if we play them 10 times, maybe we go 5-5. Tonight, they were better when it counted.”
A three-point play by Worley – who had three conventional 3-point plays in the game – pulled the Ghosts to within five early in the fourth quarter. They would get no closer the rest of the way.
“We had a couple of miscues defensively that they took advantage of, and they also started posting up 12,” Marsh said of Eberz. “That’s one thing we didn’t anticipate.”
On a team with a pair of D1 recruits in siblings Brooke and Taylor Wilson, no one could have anticipated that Eberz would score 24 points in a dazzling offensive outing – 20 in the second half that saw the Patriots take control of the game.
“I’m not really sure – they kind of got hot, and they made some shots in the second half they didn’t make in the first,” Worley said.
Abington, meanwhile, suffered a setback when Abril Bowser – the team’s defensive sparkplug who already had four steals to her credit – took a seat on the bench with her fourth foul with 1:33 remaining in the third and the Ghosts trailing by five.
“That stretch having Bowser out of the game really hurt,” Marsh said. “It hurts us defensively and offensively because it takes away another option. She didn’t score much, but having her on the floor makes a big difference, so her picking up that fourth foul really hurt us too.”
Early on, the Ghosts had things going their way. They led 8-2 after Worley completed a 3-point play just over two minutes into the game. The Patriots served notice they weren’t going away, trimming Abington’s advantage to 12-11 at the end of one quarter.
It was a 16-16 game midway through the second quarter, but Maya Johnson turned a Carroll turnover into a basket, and then Bowser went on a mini tear of her own, turning a steal on the defensive end into an easy bucket and – after a Carroll miss – blowing by her defender for a layup and a 22-16 lead. The Ghosts led by five at halftime, but the second half belonged to the Patriots.
“They play a tremendous schedule,” Marsh said of Carroll. “We did too this year, which helped us believe we could make this run. This is nothing new to them. They’re playing at a high level all the time, and they played at a really high level tonight, and you just have to take your hat off to them.”
In a poignant scene, Worley left the game with 15.8 seconds remaining, marking the end of an era for the program’s most prolific scorer.
“It was the end of a great career, but I think we made a good run,” Worley said.
Marsh had high praise for his senior star.
“Deja Rawls and Aiyannah Peal were in (the locker room) with us – two of the very good players who played for me, and I said, ‘No offense to you two, but this is the best player to come through here,’” Marsh said. “Emily Leer came through here too. Not only has (Cire) broken every scoring record. She’s going to finish with about 1800 points, she’s going to finish with the most 3s. She shoots an unbelievable percentage from 3s and from 2s.
“Basketball-wise we improved every year. Her freshman year we lost in the first round of districts. Her sophomore year (the COVID-shortened season), we lost in the third round of districts – we would have been in states, but they only took four teams. Junior year we lost in the second round of states, senior year we lost in the third round. It was an improvement every year because of her and the impact she had on this program.”
Worley’s 24 points, which included a 3 and a 5-for-5 effort at the foul line, led the Ghosts. Bowser and Piper McGinley both added seven points while Johnson had five. No other Abington player got on the scoreboard.
“We relied a lot on Cire, and we didn’t get a lot of help from others,” Marsh said. “Cire’s a big part of what we do. It’s almost like they let her get hers, and they shut everybody else down. That’s kind of what happened, and no one really stepped up.”
For the Patriots, in addition to Eberz, Taylor Wilson had 14 points and Brooke Wilson added 12 points and 18 rebounds in a stellar outing.
Abington closed out a successful season with a 25-7 record (14-2 SOL).
Abington 12-12-8-11 43
Archbishop Carroll 11-8-21-15 55
Abington (43) – Cire Worley 9 5-8 24; Maya Johnson 2 1-2 5; Abril Bowser 3 0-0 7; Piper Mcginley 2 2-3 7; TOTALS 16 8-10 43.
Archbishop Carroll (55) – Courtland Schumacher 1 0-4 2; Brooke Wilson 3 5-6 12; Alexis Eberz 7 9-11 24; Meg Sheridan 1 0-0 3; Taylor Wilson 4 4-4 14; TOTALS 16 18-25 55.
3-point goals: Abington – Cire Worley, Abril Bowser, Piper McGinley; AC – Taylor Wilson 2, Brooke Wilson, Alexis Eberz, Meg Sheridan.
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