Upper Dublin & CB West were winners in Saturday’s SOL Tournament semifinals.
SOL Tournament
UPPER DUBLIN 39, PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 35
The Colonials wanted redemption, and the Flying Cardinals had a point to prove after splitting the two regular season games and settling for second place in the conference standings behind PW.
Something had to give.
“We played them the first time at home, and we lost by 20,” UD senior captain Kara Grebe said. “I don’t think anyone expected that – to lose by that much.
“The second time we won by 15, and today – we were 1-1, so who’s the champion, especially because we didn’t win our conference this year. Today there was a lot more nerves, but going into it, our big thing is always getting stops and rebounds because they always get offensive rebounds. Our biggest thing is just boxing out every player and getting stops.”
This was another war between the conference rivals, and the Colonials got off to a good start, opening up a 9-5 lead after Kaitlyn Flanagan scored a fast break basket off a UD miss. Back-to-back baskets by Anajae Smith in the final 1:18 – the first on a cut with a pass from Jess Polin and the second after a nifty move down low – knotted the score 9-9 after one quarter.
“Anajae (Smith) is such a talented athlete, and sometimes against pressure like that, you need somebody to just get open sometimes,” UD coach Morgan Funsten said. “Her athleticism allows her to do that.”
The Cardinals made it an 8-0 run after Jackie Vargas turned a Grebe block on the defensive end into a bucket and Jess Polin buried a pair at the foul line to put UD on top 13-9. Flanagan answered with a bucket off the dribble and then buried 1-of-2 at the foul line. Sarah Eskew came up with a steal that resulted in a Vargas driving bucket, giving the Cardinals a 16-11 lead.
“I thought Jackie Vargas was great again,” Funsten said. “She’s such a presence defensively and offensively getting to the rim.”
It was still a five-point game after Vargas connected on a three, but Flanagan scored on a tough shot to pull the Colonials to within three at halftime, 19-16.
Another Vargas basket to open the second half stretched the Cardinals’ lead to five, and a reverse layup by Vargas upped that lead to 23-16. The Colonials answered with a 7-0 run that included a basket by Jordyn Thomas and five straight points from Flanagan, making it a 25-24 game. Grebe broke the Colonials’ momentum when she hit nothing but net on a baseline three.
“I don’t shoot that often, and I missed three shots in the first half,” Grebe said. “I was just kind of wide open, so I shot it. I’m very happy it went in.”
The Colonials knotted the score on a pair of Flanagan foul shots early in the fourth quarter, but after a Gabby Cooper basket that put the Colonials on top by two, PW coach Dan Dougherty was assessed a double technical.
“They had a lot of momentum at that point of the game,” Funsten said.
That momentum disappeared when UD’s Sarah Eskew sank 3-of-4 from the foul line to put the Cardinals on top 31-30. The Colonials regained the lead when Erin Daley scored on a fast break, but UD took a lead it would not lose when – after a PW turnover – Dayna Balasa buried a three in transition.
“Their pressure can either make or break us, and I think we handled it really well today,” Grebe said. “Our big thing was kicking it opposite.
“We got a lot of shots off in transition, but they weren’t falling, especially the second half, so Dayna’s three gave us a lot more energy.”
“I thought Dayna Balasa’s three was huge,” Funsten said. “She’s such a good shooter. The two 3s she missed in the third quarter could not have been any closer to going in, and so it was time to swish one, and that was no-doubt-about-it, knocked it down.”
Smith connected on the front end of a one-and-one, and after a PW miss, Vargas sank 1-of-2 to put the Cardinals on top 38-32 with 46 seconds remaining. PW freshman Abby Sharpe sank a three from NBA range with 17.2 seconds remaining, but Smith connected on 1-of-2 at the foul line to give the Cardinals their final margin of victory.
“It was a very physical game, but I thought our girls kept their composure,” Funsten said. “They’re very good, and they have a lot of fight in them, so they’re never out of a game.
“Even down six with us having the ball under our own basket with 17 seconds to go, it got a little closer than we wanted.”
Vargas led the Cardinals with 12 points, five rebounds, two assists and two blocks. Smith added nine points, and Balasa had six points and three steals. Bliss Brenner led the Cardinals under the backboards with seven rebounds to go along with a team-high three assists. Grebe added five rebounds, five points, one assist and one block.
“I thought Kara Grebe was absolutely great defensively,” Funsten said.
For the Colonials, Flanagan’s 15 points led the way, and Daley added nine.
“I thought Gabby Cooper had an outstanding defensive game – her ability to disrupt their offense was very special and led the comeback,” Dougherty said. “Kaitlyn Flanagan showed she’s one of the top players in the state. Once she started to get it going, it made our offense click.
“Jordyn Thomas showed tremendous grit – she suffered through a tough stretch against Vargas in the second quarter but weathered the storm. She came out offensively today and showed she will be a force in the post.
“As for the technical, there was no explanation from the officials. Flanagan and Cooper made a great play to give us the lead. I thought there was a foul, but nothing was said. I apologized to the girls afterwards. It’s a shame.”
Upper Dublin (17-6, 12-2 SOL) will face Central Bucks West in Monday’s SOL Tournament title game at Council Rock South (6 p.m.).
“I’m so excited,” Grebe said. “When we lost to (PW) by 20, we had a bad week that week. We lost to Upper Moreland. It was kind of scary – we didn’t know where the season was going, but we turned it around.
“Last year we lost to Abington by 15 in the semis, so I’m excited that we get to be in the championship game.”
The Flying Cardinals fell to the Bucks in a non-league game earlier this season, 35-32. Plymouth Whitemarsh (20-3, 13-1) – the top seed in District One 6A – is off until Wednesday, Feb. 19.
Upper Dublin 9-10-9-11 39
Plymouth Whitemarsh 9-7-10-9 35
Upper Dublin (39) – Anajae Smith 3 3-6 9; Jess Polin 1 2-2 4; Kara Grebe 2 0-0 5; Sarah Eskew 0 3-4 3; Dayna Balasa 2 0-0 6; Jackie Vargas 5 1-2 12; Totals 13 9-14 39.
Plymouth Whitemarsh (35) – Kaitlyn Flanagan 4 7-8 15; Abby Sharpe 2 0-2 5; Erin Daley 3 2-6 9; Gabby Cooper 1 0-2 2; Jordyn Thomas 2 0-0 4; Totals 12 9-18 35.
3-point goals: UD – Dayna Balasa 2, Jackie Vargas, Kara Grebe, PW – Abby Sharpe, Erin Daley.
CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 30, PENNSBURY 23
“Maddie does what Maddie does.”
That’s how West Zach Sibel described Maddie Burke’s effort, and in the second half of Saturday’s SOL Tournament semifinal, the senior sharpshooter cut the heart out of the Falcons, burying three clutch 3s and scoring 11 of her 13 points in the second half when it mattered most.
“She steps up when she really needs to,” Sibel said. “She’s not only a heck of a basketball player but also a heck of a leader too.”
Burke wasn’t the only player to come up big, and she had high praise for teammate Paige Gilbert.
“She makes big plays – turning points,” Burke said of Gilbert. “That’s just what she does.”
Gilbert was a thorn in the Falcons’ side, just as she’s been to many teams this year. The tough-as-nails junior – committed to William & Mary to play lacrosse – is a beast on the basketball court, tracking down loose balls and banging with the trees for rebounds. Gilbert pulled down eight boards, tying for game high. She also drew five charges.
“This is what Paige does,” Sibel said. “She’s a hustle player, she brings the energy, and she lifts the energy of the entire team.
“You look at a first quarter that was a bit whacky in terms of our norm and offensive scoring, but Paige kind of brings it up by taking charges and being active. She’s a smart kid, and she’s so unbelievably tough.”
The Bucks needed Gilbert’s toughness in a game that featured a combined 35 fouls between the two squads and had just about everybody in foul trouble.
“It was a really physical game, and it was kind of a chippy game in some ways too,” Sibel said. “I don’t think anything was dirty, but it was definitely bodies on bodies, and the refs were active.”
The game started out on a shaky note for the Bucks, who found themselves staring at a 5-0 deficit after Ava Sciolla sank her first of two 3s in the quarter. Things didn’t look promising when Burke was whistled for her second foul at the 3:11 mark, and Sciolla reeled off the next five points to put the Falcons on top 10-0. Olivia Irons brought an end to a seven-minute West scoring drought to open the game when she buried a three with a minute remaining in the quarter.
“We’re not used to that style of play – we’re used to playing fast and getting more shots off,” Burke said. “We just had to keep our heads up, keep playing, keep the energy high, stick to what we do. Shots will fall, and it will start to turn around.”
Gilbert turned a Falcon turnover into a bucket to open the second quarter, and when Jess Broskey turned a steal into a layup, the Bucks trailed by just three.
The Falcons – who connected on 4-of-7 from the foul line in the quarter – scored just seven points in the second quarter but still took a 17-10 lead into halftime.
“There were a lot of foul calls that slowed the game down, and it kind of alters the way we play,” said Burke, who was limited to just a pair of foul shots in the opening half.
“We’re normally go, go, go,” Gilbert said. “But it was start, stop, start, stop.”
In the third quarter, momentum began to swing in West’s favor. It began with Gilbert drawing a charge on the defensive end and – at the other end of the court – included a hustle play by Gilbert, who bounced a ball heading over the end line off a Pennsbury player to give the Bucks possession.
“Basically, I just want to keep the energy high and obviously make a play,” Gilbert said. “Everybody’s making plays, Maddie’s making shots, Liv’s making shots, so I just try to carry it over to defense, make a big stop.”
Burke made Gilbert’s clutch save count, burying her first shot of the game on a foul line jumper.
“My team is in my ear saying, ‘Keep shooting,’” Burke said.
“We all keep saying – ‘Keep shooting’ because we know she’ll make them,” Gilbert said
A Burke steal netted a pair of Emily Spratt foul shots, and after a Falcon turnover, Burke buried a 3-pointer to knot the score 17-17. It was a 21-21 heading into the final quarter. Broskey forced a turnover on the Falcons’ opening possession of the fourth quarter, and Burke buried a 3 at the other end, giving the Bucks a 24-21 lead. The Falcons pulled to within one after Nicole Pompili sank a pair at the foul line, but Gilbert scored on the low post, and another Burke three after a steal gave the Bucks a 29-23 lead on their way to the win.
“They’re eventually going to make shots – they have Maddie,” Pennsbury coach Frank Sciolla said. “We did a good job in the first half.
“The game spun – it was a tie game 21-21, and we lost her. For some reason we weren’t guarding her, she’s such a great shooter, and she stepped up and she made it.”
Burke led the Bucks with 13 points – 11 in the second half.
“When you’re able to handle adversity like that and able to handle different factors in the game, you’re happy to have that experience,” Sibel said. “That’s an experience that we’ll be able to take with us into the district playoffs.”
Sciolla’s 12-point effort led the Falcons, who scored just 13 points over the final three quarters – six in the second half.
“We had a really big win on Thursday night,” coach Sciolla said of the Falcons’ win over Neshaminy to clinch a share of the SOL National title. “We had pizza in my classroom after school on Friday and hung out. Today we met for about an hour, and we got on the bus.
“We feel like CB West is a really good team and has the ability to win the district and compete for a state title, so we wanted to come out hard. At the same time, we wanted to get an opportunity where a number of our girls were able to play and maybe we stayed kind of basic to what we were doing. Zach did the same thing.
“You have two very physical teams, and it took on that nature. We had a ton of open looks in the first half, and we needed to make them. We got what we wanted. They went to two and three girls on Ava. She was getting rid of it and finding people. We must have had six or seven threes that were just – walk right into them. They’re shots that normally we’re going to make a couple of them.”
Central Bucks West (19-4, 12-0 SOL) will take on Upper Dublin in Monday’s SOL Tournament title game at Council Rock South (6 p.m.). The Bucks edged the Flying Cardinals 35-32 in a non-league game Jan. 11.
“They scout really well, they have a really good coach, a really good team,” Burke said. “It will be a good game.”
Pennsbury (14-4, 11-1) will return to action Wednesday, Feb. 19, in the District One 6A Tournament. The Falcons and Bucks both have an opening round bye.
Extra shots: Saturday’s game featured an interesting side note. Zach Sibel played basketball for Sciolla at Pennsbury. “It’s always hard when I’ve done that,” Sciolla said. “It’s difficult when you coach because if you win the game, you don’t feel good, and then, of course, you’re competitive. I will admit – I did something today I never do. I did spend some time watching the other coach. I don’t ever watch the other coach. I don’t ever notice the crowd, I don’t notice anyone. Today I watched him in a positive way just to see him interacting because there are no stakes to the game. I’m very proud of him. I knew exactly what he probably said at halftime, I knew exactly what he said after the game. If we don’t win, I’ll be with him the whole ride.” Sibel had high praise for his former coach. “I credit everything I know about basketball to that guy,” the Bucks’ coach said. “I want to try to build a culture like he created for us and creates anywhere he goes. There’s no secret why (Pennsbury) is having success, but it was weird. It’s an interesting feeling.”
Pennsbury 10-7-4-2. 23
Central Bucks West 3-7-11-9. 30
Pennsbury (23) – Ava Sciolla 4 2-2 12; Abbi Nassivera 0 1-2 1; Bella Arcuri 0 2-4 2; Lauren Dignan 0 2-2 2; Mary Miller 1 0-0 2; Nicole Pompili 1 2-2 4; Totals 6 9-12 23.
Central Bucks West (30) – Paige Gilbert 2 1-2 5; Olivia Irons 1 2-3 5; Emily Spratt 0 2-2 2; Maggie McCusker 0 0-1 0; Jess Broskey 2 0-0 4; Maddie Burke 4 2-2 13; Lilly Evans 0 1-2 1. Totals 9 8-12 30.
3-point goals: Pennsbury – Ava Sciolla 2, CB West – Maddie Burke 3, Olivia Irons.
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