Nazareth Academy sent Upper Merion home for the season in a District One AAA quarterfinal game on Friday night. To view action photos of the game, please click on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/g/022412_upper_merion_vs_nazareth_dl
KING OF PRUSSIA – Cassidy Koenig stared blankly at the wall, the disappointment the Upper Merion senior was feeling written all over her face as she stood in the hallway just outside her team’s locker room after Friday night’s season-ending 52-44 loss to Nazareth Academy.
“It’s really hard,” Koenig said. “We worked really hard the past two weeks, and we definitely thought we could win. We only needed this win to get to the final four
“I just felt like I could have made a few more of my shots. To me, they looked like they were going in, but they just kept going long. I didn’t think I wasn’t going to make anything. I thought I was going to make them.”
Koenig, the school’s all-time leading female three-point shooter, and her teammates struggled from the outside all night long, but it wasn’t the missed shots that were so disappointing. It was the fact that a special season had come to an end sooner than the Vikings had hoped.
“It’s hard to see it end,” said junior Kristina O’Sullivan, who scored a team-high 16 points. “You’ll see these girls in school, but some of them are going off to college, and we won’t see them again, especially Cass (Koenig). She and Jackie (VanLoan) have been on the team all three years I’ve been on the team.
“It’s hard to see them leave. We had something so great, and to see it end is very disappointing.”
For a while, it looked as though the Vikings might break their jinx against the Catholic Academies schools that has plagued them in Class AAA postseason play.
“My biggest regret, aside from losing- of course, is I’ll never know if we solved the mystery of the academies because we go up to (Class) AAAA next year,” coach Tom Schurtz said. “Upper Merion has been sent home from the playoffs seven of the last eight times by an academy team.”
For a while, it looked as though the Vikings might be able to reverse that trend, opening up an 11-7 lead after an O’Sullivan putback late in the first quarter. The Vikings still led by four after freshman Regie Robinson, who scored 12 points, pulled down a defensive rebound and took it coast-to-coast for a basket that put the Vikings on top 15-11.
“I thought Sully and our freshman Regi had great games going to the basket,” Schurtz said.
A pair of foul shots by sophomore Katerine Bailey gave the Vikings a 19-15 lead. The Pandas answered with an 8-2 run to go on top 23-21, but a Koenig trey sent the Vikings into halftime with a 24-23 lead.
“We forced them out of their man and put them in massive foul trouble in the first half,” Schurtz said. “They had 13 team fouls in the first half.”
Things went downhill in a hurry for the Vikings after O’Sullivan buried a shot from just inside the arc to open the third quarter. The Vikings turned the ball over on back-to-back possessions and endured a scoring drought of more than three minutes as the Pandas opened up a 31-26 lead.
“We couldn’t make shots,” Schurtz said. “We’re not an inside out team. We rely on forcing teams out of zones by making shots. Tonight we got a little tight.
“I think tonight’s game came down to our three turnovers to start the second half. They built that five or six-point lead, and we could not get over the hump.
“It was two minutes of bad basketball, just sloppy basketball, and that’s not indicative of our season. The awful part of playoff basketball is that you’re defined by one night, and tonight we just did not do what needed to be done. Give Nazareth credit. They made the adjustments that needed to be made.”
The Vikings trimmed the Pandas’ lead to three after another Robinson bucket in the closing minute of the third quarter, but Bridget Sobon scored to open the fourth quarter, putting the Pandas on top 38-33. The Vikings would get no closer than four the rest of the way.
“We had a week straight of practice,” O’Sullivan said. “Every girl on our team – even the ones that didn’t play like (Nicole) Priest and (Nicole) Weber, they worked so hard, and you kind of want to win for them too.
“Everyone on the floor worked hard. Players off the bench, the bench cheering – that’s all you can ask for. It’s very disappointing.”
The Viking players bid their emotional farewells behind closed doors in the locker room after a postgame meeting with their coaches. There weren’t many dry eyes when they exited.
“I enjoyed the team a lot,” Koenig said. “I love them all. They’re such a great team. They all look to pick each other up. We wouldn’t have gotten here without everybody.”
Schurtz bids farewell to seniors Koenig, VanLoan, Priest and Weber.
“It’s a (heck) of a senior class,” the Vikings’ coach said. “When Upper Merion rolls into a gym – we’re not the biggest team on the floor. This senior class won 59 games together in one of the toughest leagues in the area.
“We’re playing schools twice our size, and nobody gets in here without getting a good game out of us.”
The Vikings closed out the season with a 16-7 record.
NAZARETH (52) – Bridget Sobon 4 5-8 14; Marissa Sylvester 2 0-1 4; Nicole Dombrowski 3 8-11 14; Danielle Gasperi 6 4-5 18; Raya Stearn 0 0-0 0; Kristen Coyne 0 0-0 0; Gabby Balara 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 16 17-25 52.
UPPER MERION (44) – MJ Valeri 0 0-0 0; Kristina O’Sullivan 6 3-6 16; Regie Robinson 5 2-4 12; Jackie VanLoan 1 1-5 3; Cassidy Koenig 3 0-0 8; Katherine Bailey 1 3-4 5; Amanda McAteer 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 16 9-19 44.
Nazareth 7 16 13 16-52
Upper Merion 11 13 9 11-44
3-point goals: N-Sobon, Gasperi 2; UM-Koenig 2, O’Sullivan.
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