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Cheltenham 50, Upper Dublin 48
WYNCOTE – Vince Catanzaro leaned against the wall outside his team’s locker room and shook his head. The immense disappointment he was feeling was written all over his face.
“It’s heartbreaking,” the Upper Dublin coach said after his team dropped a 50-48 decision to the conference-leading Panthers. “The kids are not feeling good about it obviously.
“They let one get away. How often do you get one here? You don’t. I’ve been here, and I’ve won here already, and I know you don’t get them that often here. When you get the opportunity to get one, you have to (finish). You’ve got to step up.”
Making the loss especially devastating for the Flying Cardinals was the fact that they had a 46-43 lead after Curtrena Goff found Taylor Bryant for a layup early in the final quarter. They still led by two when Jen Myers scored with five minutes remaining (48-45).
That, however, would be the final points the Flying Cardinals would score as the Lady Panthers scored five unanswered points to close out the game. Despite a win that all but clinched another SOL American Conference title, the Lady Panthers were none too happy with their performance.
“We were just kind of slow out there today,” senior Austen Hamler said. “We weren’t really getting on the boards. We were letting them control the game. We were up and we let them get back into it.”
The Flying Cardinals came within inches of tying the game in the final seconds but a layup at the buzzer came up short.
“You can’t get any more open than we were,” Catanzaro said. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
The win gave the defending conference champion Lady Panthers a two-game lead and a stronghold on first place with five conference games remaining.
“We knew it was going to be hard,” senior Tiffany Johnson said. “Beating a team the second time is always hard.
“They brought it tonight, and we didn’t. It was not our best, but at least we got the win.”
Upper Dublin’s Taylor Bryant led all scorers with 18 points, which included a near-perfect 6-for-7 effort from the foul line. Teammate Sarah Hallowell added 12 points, which included three treys. Jen Myers added eight.
For the Lady Panthers, Ciara ‘CC’ Andrews scored 13 points while Shayla Peoples added 12 and Christina Coleman, 11 points.
A look back at the final quarter would suggest that neither team exactly helped its own cause.
It was a 48-47 game after Hamler converted an offensive rebound into a bucket with 3:45 remaining. The Flying Cardinals turned the ball over, but the Lady Panthers missed a shot to take the lead. Upper Dublin misfired on the front end of a one-and-one, opening the door again for Cheltenham to take the lead.
The Lady Panthers once again came up short, but the Flying Cardinals could not capitalize on a Cheltenham turnover, and this time the Lady Panthers made it hurt as Andrews converted a tough drive in traffic into a bucket that gave Cheltenham a 49-48 lead with 1:40 remaining.
Coleman came up with a steal on the defensive end, but the Lady Panthers couldn’t convert. When the Flying Cardinals misfired for the lead with 20 seconds remaining, Hamler hauled in the big rebound and immediately passed the ball to Andrews, who was fouled.
The junior guard buried the front end of the one-and-one to put her team on top 50-48 with 17 seconds remaining. Andrews pulled down the rebound of her own miss on the second but then came up short on yet another one-and-one with 14 seconds remaining, giving the Flying Cardinals one last chance for the tie or win.
The Flying Cardinals had the shot they wanted but couldn’t convert.
“If you can’t make your foul shots and you can’t make a layup when you’re wide open, you don’t win the game,” Catanzaro said. “That game was as close as it gets the whole game.
“Everything was contested. It was terrific ‘D’ by both teams, but the thing is we had numerous open layups - I can’t even talk about it right now.”
Early on, Cheltenham opened up a quick 4-0 lead after a fastbreak bucket by Andrews, but the Cardinals knotted the score 8-8 after a Lauren Rothfeld putback. A Peoples trey put the Lady Panthers on top 19-12 with 25 seconds remaining in the first quarter, but Hallowell was fouled while burying a trey and completed the four-point play to make it a 19-16 game.
“It was zombie defense,” Cheltenham coach Bob Schaefer said. “They’re asleep half the time, standing around. They’re leaving their man when they’re supposed to stay home and protect the basket.
“It was just a horrendous display. I’m sure Vince isn’t any happier. That was a game no one wanted to win.”
The Lady Panthers took a 31-26 lead into halftime. That lead grew to 33-26 when Andrews found Hamler for an easy bucket to open the second half, but by the end of the quarter – after four straight Bryant points – Cheltenham’s lead had been trimmed to 43-41, setting the stage for the dramatic fourth quarter.
“Somehow we managed to pull it out,” Schaefer said. “I guess that’s a good thing, but it wasn’t a display of disciplined defense or offense.”
“I’m really disappointed because I thought we were going to show some improvement.”
Both Cheltenham and Upper Dublin boast 11-3 records overall.
“I just told the girls – we had the game,” Catanzaro said. “It’s just a matter of learning how to go out and finish. You can’t say it was one person because more than one person missed shots.
“Once we get on the bus, we have to let it go because we have another game on Saturday. If you don’t let it go, you could get your butt handed to you on Saturday. We just can’t give this game away like we did.”
The Flying Cardinals will host Central Bucks South in an 8 p.m. game in Saturday’s SOL Challenge while the Lady Panthers will travel to Abington for a 5 p.m. battle against their neighboring rival.
“We have to go hard,” Hamler said. “We have to play much smarter.”
“We have the skill,” Johnson said. “We just have to bring it.
“The first quarter we brought it but then we let it go. We have to play a full four quarters.”
EXTRA SHOTS: Upper Dublin’s Tori Waters came off the bench to pull down a game-high 10 rebounds. “Tori was probably the best rebounder out there today because she was putting a body on people,” Catanzaro said. “Early in the game, we weren’t boxing out. I was switching players in and out to find players who wanted to box.”
CHELTENHAM 50, UPPER DUBLIN 48
Upper Dublin (48) – Curtrena Goff 2 0-2 4; Taylor Bryant 6 6-7 18; Sarah Hallowell 4 1-1 12; Lauren Rothfeld 3 0-0 6; Jen Myers 2 4-5 8; Tori Waters 0 0-0 0; Kayla McAneney 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 17 11-15 48
Cheltenham (50) – Ciara Andrews 6 1-3 13; Tiffany Johnson 4 2-4 8; Christina Coleman 4 3-4 11; Shayla Peoples 4 2-4 12; Austen Hamler 2 0-0 4; Jiana Clark 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 20 8-15 50
Upper Dublin 16 10 15 7-48
Cheltenham 19 12 12 7-50
3-point goals: Upper Dublin – Hallowell 3, Cheltenham – Peoples 2.
Council Rock North 57, William Tennent 44
Junior center Emily Grundman scored 20 points and added six rebounds and four blocked shots while teammates Devin Gold and Alyssa Dumant each added 10 points. Gold also had six rebounds, two steals and four assists while Dumont had seven boards.
Lauren Gold added nine points, and Helena Gemmell scored eight in a balanced scoring attack for the Indians. Gold also had six assists and two steals, and Gemmell had seven rebounds, two steals and three assists.
The Indians jumped out to a 16-11 lead at the end of one quarter, but saw the Panthers answer with a 16-12 second quarter to go into halftime with a 28-27 halftime lead. The Indians responded with a 12-5 third quarter and outscored the Panthers 18-11 in the final quarter on their way to the win.
Alison Malatesta and Liz Koval both scored nine points for the Panthers while Allison Chatburn added eight. Rachael Mueller and Ashley Alden both scored six points.
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