Council Rock South and Cheltenham will try and keep their seasons alive on Friday night when they do battle in the PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinals.
The pure joy Council Rock South’s players were feeling after pulling off their heartstopping win over District 3 champion Red Lion on Tuesday night was written on each of their faces.
“I can’t honestly say how amazing this feels,” said senior Rachel Jacob, wearing ice packs on both of her knees but a smile on her face. “Being the first class at Council Rock South High School to make it to the Sweet Eight of the state is amazing, and we’re not done yet.
“I don’t want to stop here. My heart is telling me and telling the whole team that we’re going to go on, and we’re going to keep going. We’re going to do great. I believe in us.”
It would have been hard to find anyone who wasn’t a believer after the Golden Hawks’ gutsy 54-51 win over Red Lion, and for those who thought the Golden Hawks were a one-woman show, this win – on the big stage that is the state tournament - was a consummate team effort.
A fact that senior standout Alex Wheatley, who was hindered by fouls the entire game, was quick to point out.
“They’re amazing,” she said of her teammates. “I get in foul trouble, and they still get rebounds, they still run the floor, they still make the passes. They really don’t need me obviously.”
That statement was met with objections from every Rock South player within earshot, and proof of her value was the fact that - on a night when she was hindered by fouls - Wheatley still managed to score 15 points and pull down 10 rebounds.
Still, the senior captain tipped her hat to her teammates.
“They played so well,” Wheatley said. “They kept control of the game. I love my teammates. I say it all the time. Can everyone believe me now? I love them both on the floor and off the floor. I’m so proud of my teammates.”
There was a whole lot to be proud of. Junior Courtney Brown and sophomore Taylor Dillon combined for 31 points, which included six three-pointers.
“Their performances were so great,” coach Monica Stolic said. “They definitely stepped up bid. Red Lion wasn’t guarding our outside shooters, so they were open a little bit more than they are used to, and they were knocking down their shots. It should give them a lot of confidence.”
Jacob came up big in the paint, contributing eight points and tough rebounding while point guard Alexis Hofstaedter was poised in the face of non-stop pressure.
“We need Hof to score, but her bringing the ball up against Red Lion’s pressure was key,” Stolic said. “I’m very pleased. It’s March 15, and we’re still playing basketball. It’s history for our team, and we want it to hopefully continue.”
The Golden Hawks – for the first time in the short history of their program – find themselves in the Elite Eight. It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
“It’s emotional,” Wheatley said. “It just keeps getting better, and I don’t want it to end. It’s a fun ride, and I don’t really want to get off.”
“It’s a rare opportunity,” Jacob added. “We’re so happy that we’re all here together. I wouldn’t trade any one of them. I love the group of girls I’m with.”
1-4 COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH (27-2) vs. 3-6 GOVERNOR MIFFLIN (19-8) at Parkland High School, Friday, March 16, 7 p.m.
Council Rock South advanced to Friday night’s quarterfinal with a gutsy 54-51 win over District 3 champion Red Lion, a squad believed by many to be the biggest hurdle standing between the Golden Hawks and a trip to the state final at Penn State. The Golden Hawks won despite the fact that senior standout Alex Wheatley – who still finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds - was battling foul woes for the better part of the contest. Junior Courtney Brown provided some serious offensive firepower from the outside, draining four treys en route to a team-high 16 points. Sophomore Taylor Dillon added 15 points, including the game winner with 20 seconds remaining. Rachel Jacob had eight points and was a presence in the paint while junior point guard Alexis Hofstaedter calmly directed the Golden Hawks against Red Lion’s non-stop pressure defense.
Governor Mifflin has been the Cinderella team in the East, upsetting District One runner-up North Penn in last week’s opening round and riding the momentum of that victory for a 51-42 win over District 11 runner-up Liberty on Tuesday. While Ashley Espinosa, the program’s all-time leading scorer, has gotten most of the ink, it has been the play of junior Emily Gingrich that has been the difference in the state playoffs. In the Mustangs’ win over North Penn, Espinosa scored a game-high 18 points, but it was the speedy Gingrich who seemed to make all the big plays down the stretch, collecting five second-half steals - three in the fourth quarter - and scoring eight of her 15 points in the second half. In Tuesday’s win over a Liberty team that was coming off an upset of Cardinal O’Hara, Espinosa was whistled for her third foul with 6:11 remaining in the second quarter, but Gingrich – whose 10 first-quarter points spotted the Mustangs an early 16-6 lead – picked up the slack. The junior guard is best known for her performances on the soccer field, but Gingrich showed that she possesses some serious talent on the hardwood as well. Twice after Liberty trimmed the Mustangs’ lead to a single possession, Gingrich converted steals into baskets. She finished with a game-high 25 points while Espinosa added 14 points and 11 rebounds.
‘Go hard or go home.’
That’s how Cheltenham senior Christina Coleman described her team’s mindset entering Friday night’s game against a Spring-Ford team that boasts a school record 25-game winning streak and is the top-ranked team in the state.
The Lady Panthers handed the district champion Rams one of their only two losses of the season (60-46), but that came in the first game of the year at the Hazleton Tournament. Coleman and her teammates know that a lot has changed since then.
“The only thing I can say is we have to come out and play our hardest,” the Lady Panthers’ senior captain said. “Today we watched tape, and we looked at all the mistakes we made, and we’re just going to try eliminate those and do everything we can.
“We’re not going to worry about them. We’re just going to put our hearts on the table because we know this will either make or break us, so we just have to do our best to win.”
The fact that the Lady Panthers are still playing is undoubtedly a surprise to many after they stumbled to back-to-back losses to North Penn and Mount St. Joseph in the district tournament, finishing seventh after going into districts as the number one seed.
“After the North Penn game, we were down and out,” Coleman admitted. “In the Mount St. Joe’s game, we hit rock bottom.
“We came to the conclusion that if we really wanted to go further we had to stop making mistakes and try our hardest or this would be the end of our season. We came to the realization that we had to go hard or go home.”
According to coach Bob Schaefer, defense has been a key to his team’s state run, and it will be crucial in Friday’s game against the high-powered Rams.
“Everybody is stepping up their defense a little bit, and we’re getting more help defensively,” he said. “CC has been carrying us (offensively), but players are going to have to step up.”
Coleman, the Lady Panthers’ top rebounder, is averaging over 11 points a game this season, and her play inside will be key against a Ram squad that pressures for 92 feet. Jiana Clark – who had a double-double in the win over Solanco – averages eight points a game while Ming Seawright contributes six points.
All three – as well as senior guard Shayla Peoples - will need to contribute if the Lady Panthers entertain any thoughts of upsetting the Rams.
“We have had many inside shots that we should be finishing – kids are making good entry passes, and we’re getting nothing out of it,” Schaefer said. “We’re going to have to finish this game underneath.
“Our shooting outside has picked up, but the inside has faded. We’re going to have to get a much better effort inside by our forwards on offense.”
In Tuesday’s second round win, Spring-Ford allowed Mount St. Joseph to score just 31 points, and the Rams won despite scoring a season-low 38 points. The Lady Panthers hope they have similar success containing a Ram squad that has averaged over 60 points a game.
“Our defense has improved,” Schaefer said. “The last two games we shut down the big players that were their leading scorers, and we held them down. That was a big improvement.
“The teams we’ve been hurt by are teams where the bigger players did very well. Certainly we’re going to have to control our turnovers.
“Spring-Ford is the most improved team of the year. We caught them off guard the beginning of the season. We jumped on them early, and they couldn’t get themselves started. That’s not going to happen (Friday) night.
“Their defense – they’re just voracious going after the ball, and we’re going to have to work real hard on offense not to have a lot of turnovers and also to play up to their speed.”
Cheltenham’s game plan, according to Coleman, has less to do with what Spring-Ford does than what the Lady Panthers do.
“We haven’t really seen them since that (first) game,” she said. “We’re just going to come out going as hard as we can. We know they’ve definitely gotten better since the beginning of the season, but so have we.”
1-7 CHELTENHAM (26-3) vs 1-1 SPRING-FORD (29-2) at Norristown High School on Friday, March 16, 6 p.m.
The Lady Panthers own the state tournament’s most memorable win, rallying from a seven-point deficit with less than 30 seconds to play in their opening round game against District 11 champion Bangor to earn a miraculous 65-63 win. Ciara ‘CC’ Andrews scored 10 straight points to spearhead the comeback, including a bucket at the buzzer after a steal under her team’s own basket. Tuesday’s second round game against Solanco (a 65-36 win) was a stark contrast and was over almost before it began. The Lady Panthers sprinted to a 10-0 lead and took a 36-15 lead into halftime with Andrews, who finished with a game-high 32 points in three quarters, scoring 24 of those. Senior Jiana Clark added 10 points and 10 rebounds while Christina Coleman added nine rebounds, and Shayla Peoples connected on a pair of three-pointers. Ming Seawright added six rebounds and four points.
Spring-Ford rode its suffocating defense to a 38-31 win over Mount St. Joseph Academy in Tuesday’s second round. The win came on the heels of a 55-24 rout of Manheim Township in an opening round game that saw Sarah Payonk score 15 points while Mariah Traywick added 13 points and seven rebounds. All told, the Rams forced 27 turnovers. In Tuesday’s win over the Mount, Brittany Moore scored a team-high 13 points while Payonk contributed 11. The Mount connected on just 12-of-51 shots as the Rams’ defense never allowed the Magic to find any kind of offensive rhythm. Traywick (11.0 PPG), Sammy Stipa (10.9 PPG) and Payonk (10.4 PPG) lead the Rams’ balanced attack. If the Lady Panthers hope to stay with the high-scoring Rams, they will not only need to combat Spring-Ford’s relentless pressure, they will also have to play some serious defense of their own.
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