Chalk this win up to heart.
Upper Dublin lost senior standout Kristen Fuery to an ankle injury in the opening minutes of Friday night’s showdown against neighboring Wissahickon. It would have been a good excuse for the Flying Cardinals to fold their tents.
They did nothing of the sort, rallying from a 19-14 halftime deficit to earn a 32-28 win in front of a full house for the boys/girls double header.
“We just came out and shut them down,” said Upper Dublin coach Vince Catanzaro, whose team still trailed 26-20 heading into the final quarter. “We played tremendous ‘D’ on number 35, Colleen Hinde.
“We face guarded her the whole game. She got in foul trouble early – she had three fouls in the first half, and that made a big difference for us.”
Sarah Hallowell and Taylor Bryant each connected for a pair of big baskets in the fourth quarter. It was Hallowell, according to Catanzaro, burying a three that put the Cardinals on top 30-27 with 90 seconds remaining.
“I told them at halftime we needed somebody to step up and make some shots, and they stepped up and made them,” the Flying Cardinals’ coach said. “We needed them, and we played great ‘D.’
“That was the key – stopping them at their end and then having somebody come down and knock a shot down.”
The Trojans connected on one-of-two from the foul line to make it a 30-28 game, but Hallowell came through with a big play to seal the win.
“Sarah got a tremendous rebound and made both foul shots to give us a four-point lead,” Catanzaro said.
The win avenged a 50-33 loss to the Trojans (8-2) earlier this month and put the Flying Cardinals, who improved to 7-3, back in the hunt for second place in the American Conference standings.
“This was a huge win,” Catanzaro said. “Now, if Cheltenham beats Wissahickon and we do well in the rest of our games, we could end up in a tie for second or win second outright, which would be huge for us.
“We won this game, and we didn’t have Kristen the whole game. Everybody made a few more shots at the end, and we didn’t turn the ball over.”
Bryant led the Cardinals with 11 points while Hallowell had nine and Curtrena Goff, eight points.
Long-time Upper Dublin athletic director Dave Harr was honored at Friday night’s double header.
Fuery, who suffered a second degree ankle sprain, was taken to the hospital. No word was available as to the extent of her injury.
Patriots find their stride – Central Bucks East is back.
Not that the Patriots were ever gone, but they struggled offensively in a 35-34 loss to North Penn last Friday night when they shot a paltry 20 percent from the floor.
Less than 24 hours later, they fell to Council Rock North, and on Tuesday night against Quakertown, the Patriots came out of the gate strong, opening up a 20-7 lead, but then they got caught up in a scoring-fest before earning a 73-65 win.
“The big learning lesson from that was even though they cut it to five with four minutes left – the team didn’t panic,” coach Tom Lonergan said. “We were able to regroup, and we were finishing from the line, which we did not do against either North Penn or CR North.”
On Friday night, the Patriots appeared to find their stride in a 58-35 win over a Pennridge squad that was coming off a huge upset of Central Bucks South.
“We played much better tonight,” coach Tom Lonergan said. “The big thing we talked about was we felt that our game preparation going into the week of North Penn and Council Rock North wasn’t very good.
“I think we were overly-jubilant from the (Central Bucks) South game on Tuesday of that week, and our Wednesday and Thursday practices prior to our North Penn/CR North games were not very intense. They didn’t work hard for the full practice. I reminded them that it clearly showed in both contests.
“On the bus ride back from Council Rock, we said, ‘We have to get back to the chalkboard. Our classroom is our practice time, and we need to get back to having more intense practices and focusing on our game plan and take it one game at a time.’”
The Patriots not only played tough defense against Pennridge, they also had their inside-outside game untracked. The Martin sisters dominated the paint with Liz contributing 22 points and Sarah, 12 points. Courtney McManus connected on four three’s for 12 points – the Patriots’ junior guard was 4-for-9 from beyond the arc.
“The confidence started to come back,” Lonergan said.
East led 16-12 at the end of one quarter and then outscored the Rams 11-4 in the second quarter to go into halftime with a 27-16 lead. They blew the game wide open with a 19-8 third quarter.
Lonergan credited his team’s excellent practices on Wednesday and Thursday for its strong showing.
“I think the players realized the old saying is true – practice makes perfect, and what you do in practice is reflected in the game,” the Patriots’ coach said. “We worked hard on our game plan for Pennridge, which was slightly different from what we had done in the past – we played more man, played a triangle-and-two.
“Hopefully that will be a lesson learned that they realize they have to utilize their time in the classroom and, in this case, on the court to get ready for their next opponent. I don’t think we overlooked anybody, but I don’t think we prepared ourselves as well as we could have. I don’t see that happening from this point out. That may have been a wake-up call.”
Sam Simononis led the Rams with nine points while Jenny Cooley added seven.
While the Rams fell to 3-7 in league play (8-10 overall), the Patriots improved to 9-1 in the league (12-3 overall). East returns to action on Saturday at 2:30 when the Patriots will travel to Methacton for a non-league game.
North Penn celebrates Senior Night in style – Dara Nelson used the word ‘perfect’ to describe North Penn’s 55-36 Senior Night win over archrival Souderton. So did coach Maggie deMarteleire.
As Senior Nights go, they don’t get much better than this one. The game was played in front of a large and spirited crowd, and the Maidens seized control of this one early and never let go.
“Tonight couldn’t have been more perfect,” deMarteleire said. “Everybody got to play, everybody played well. This is how we want them to play.”
“It was the perfect Senior Night,” Nelson added. “All the seniors got in, and we all got a decent amount of time.
“We showed Souderton we’re not messing around, and we’re not the team we were the first time we played them.
The Maidens, who fell to the Indians 49-43 earlier this month, played stifling defense and had everything working on offense.
“I thought defensively we were very strong,” deMarteleire said. “I thought our guards did a much better job – for the most part – of defending the perimeter, and I thought our posts did a nice job of defending (Carley) Kendall.”
Kendall had just two points, and although Souderton senior Brittany Sandone scored a game-high 19 points, it wasn’t nearly enough for the Indians.
Creating problems for the Indians all night was senior Taylour Alston, who owned the paint, finishing with a team-high 17 points and eight rebounds. The Maidens’ senior center scored the first six points of the game for her team – connecting on three baskets down low.
“That was huge,” Nelson said. “She’s a big girl, and she throws people around. There aren’t many people who can stop her unless they’re holding onto her arms.
“When she starts getting intense and finishing, we all get hyped up and start finishing too.”
Steph Knauer added 11 points for the Maidens while senior Gina Silvestrini came off the bench and connected on a pair of quick shots for five points.
The Maidens, who sprinted to a 13-6 lead at the end of one quarter, took a 25-14 lead into halftime. Alston had 10 points and five rebounds.
“Offense is nice, but I would rather have a million, jillion rebounds than points,” the IUP-bound senior said. “That’s just me. I guess I’m a little backwards that way.”
With Alston dominating the paint, the Maidens were unstoppable. They opened up 35-14 lead after a fast break bucket by Mary Ward before the Indians staged a mini-run to trim that lead to 14 (35-21). Ward answered with another bucket, and the Indians would get no closer the rest of the way.
“The last time we weren’t focused enough,” Alston said of her team’s loss to the Indians. “This game we came out focused.
“We were all together. We refused to lose. We would do whatever we needed to do to win this game.”
While the Indians dropped to 6-4 in league play, the Maidens improved to 7-3.
Colonials in command – Plymouth Whitemarsh turned in its strongest performance of the season in its 61-31 win over Upper Moreland.
“It was just an awesome game,” coach Becky Duffy said. “It was one of those games where everything just started to click.
“You could actually see the drills from practice happening on the court as they were unfolding. It was a very good game, and a lot of it had to do with confidence. Once we started to have momentum that was the end of it. Every single kid that went into the game just played fantastic. Really, everybody played well.”
Gabby Schumacker led the Colonials with four three’s for 12 points.
“Her confidence was up,” Duffy said. “Hopefully, she has that same confidence going into the next game.”
Alyssa Butcher and Katie Wacker each added 11 points. All 10 PW players who saw action scored.
“When does that ever happen?” Duffy said.
The first-year coach credited her team’s defense for its decisive win.
“We have been working on defense every single day at practice,” Duffy said. “A lot of our offensive opportunities came from defensive stops – steals and deflections.
“We passed very well, we played very good defense, and we shot very well. I haven’t seen my team shoot like that all season. It was a good time – a lot of fun.”
According to Duffy, whose team improved to 3-7 in league play, it was Katie Wacker who set the tone for this one early.
“She’s just been playing so well, and she’s a leader on the court,” the PW coach said. “She steps up for us.”
Katie Costello led the Golden Bears (0-10) with 12 points.
Spartans on top of their game – Springfield might well have played its best basketball of the season in the opening half of the Spartans’ 55-49 win over Norristown on Friday.
The Spartans open up a 16-10 lead at the end of one quarter and then exploded for 20 second quarter points on their way to a 36-20 halftime lead.
Morgan Smith, who finished with 14 points, scored 10 points in the first quarter, and Annie Crudele scored 10 of her game-high 22 points in the second quarter. Briana Scafidi collected eight of her 10 points in the first half.
“We really came out ready to play in the first half,” coach Sarah Constable said. “I was so impressed with the level of intensity and focus they came out with. They did everything we had talked about and executed it.
“A 20-point quarter for us is huge. Offensively, the past two games we have just struggled. We had 18 points against Wissahickon and 26 against Upper Dublin. We were talking about – this wasn’t the team we saw at the beginning of the year. We all needed to come out ready to finish. We were still getting a lot of the looks we wanted, but we just weren’t finishing. We really stepped up and did that tonight.”
The win avenged a 43-37 loss to the Eagles in the first go-round.
“This is exactly what we needed,” Constable said. “It’s kind of a unique time in the season. It’s a time where a lot of teams could be hot at this point, and it’s great to see us having that fight to come up with such a big win tonight.”
Cashae Hinton and Natasha Matthews led the Eagles with 12 points each.
While the Eagles fell to 3-7 in league play (4-11 overall), the Spartans improved to 4-6 in the league (10-6 overall).
Lady Panthers on a tear – The Cheltenham Lady Panthers are on a legitimate tear.
In three games combined, they’ve scored 218 points for an average of over 70 points a game, and on Friday night, the Lady Panthers put an exclamation point on a red hot week with an 81-23 win over Upper Merion. Earlier in the season, the Vikings gave the Lady Panthers – who were minus a pair of starters – their toughest game in SOL play before falling 57-44.
This time around, it was never a contest.
By halftime, Shayla Felder had 24 points, including six three-pointers, and the Lady Panthers led 51-12 on their way to an 81-23 win over the Vikings.
Felder, who had 12 points in each of the first two quarters, finished the game with 29 points, which included a school record seven three-point baskets. The previous record of six was set by Molly Dillon in 2004.
Cassidy Koenig led the Vikings with 12 points.
With the win, the Lady Panthers improved to 10-0 in league play (18-0 overall) while the Vikings fell to 5-5 (8-7 overall).
Short-handed Indians down Panthers - Council Rock North was minus a pair of starters in Friday's game against William Tennent but still had enough firepower to earn a 50-36 win.
Veteran Sarah Kiely led the Indians with 16 points and 10 rebounds, but several reserves came up big as well. Sophomore Megan Cunningham contributed 10 points, burying 5-of-6 shots from the floor - all from long range.
"We need her to step up," coach Lou Palkovics said. "We can't have teams look at our fifth starter and say, 'We can sag off them.'
"She really shot the ball well last night. If she can do that for us, we're going to be a lot more dangerous. I had three girls play well that don't get a lot of time."
Sophomore Emily Grundman, who is 6-1, contributed five points and seven rebounds in a starting role. Helena Gemmell came off the bench to contribute several steals and rebounds. Veteran Devin Gold also had 10 points
Ashley Alden scored 12 points to lead the Panthers while Melissa Horn added seven.
The Indians are 10-0 in league play (14-4 overall) while the Panthers are 5-6 in the league (7-8 overall).
Around the league – Council Rock South defeated Bensalem 43-25. Chelsea Allen (14 points), Alex Wheatley (13 points) and Lea Britton (10 points) led the Golden Hawks. Ashleigh Spence had 16 points to lead the Owls.
Sparked by the 27-point effort of Kelsey Ryan, Neshaminy downed Truman 60-20. Elisha Dupree led the Tigers with eight points.
Central Bucks South notched a 63-34 win over Hatboro-Horsham. Gab Vass and Kaycee Schaefer led the Titans with 12 points each. Kate Romano’s 16-point effort paced the Hatters.
Abington found its offense in a 61-32 win over Pennsbury. Emily Leer scored 25 points while Jessica Schmidt added 12 for the Ghosts. Kelsey Moulton had seven points to lead the Falcons. One night earlier, the Ghosts defeated Methacton 33-23.
Daniella Ciccarone continued her torrid offensive pace, scoring 27 points to lead Quakertown to a 66-43 win over Central Bucks West. Teammate Lauren Starzecky added 18 points while Kristine Jackiewicz added 10. Sophomore Jen Fabian led the Bucks with 13 points while Bia Jurema had 11 and Sam Colloi, nine points.
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