The Perkiomen Valley girls’ basketball team poses with the spoils of the PIAA Class 6A championship at the Giant Center in Hershey. Behind their senior core, the Vikings won their first state title with a 58-27 win over Upper St. Clair. (CoBL Photo/Mark Jordan)
By Andrew Robinson
It was really the only way it could have ended.
A generational team in Perkiomen Valley had put on a generational performance in the PIAA Class 6A title game Friday night in Hershey, a stunning score leaving the team’s senior core ample time to sit and reflect on their time together. But the nature of how the game had gone had also denied a real opportunity to give that core a proper final send-off so with 30 seconds left, they went in together and ran out the clock together.
A journey three years in the making ended the best way possible at the Giant Center, Perk Valley putting on arguably its best-ever performance as a group and winning its first state title 58-27 over Upper St. Clair.
“It was so special, getting to end that way with all of them, all I can say is special,” PV’s senior point guard Bella Bacani said. “I think we all started to realize this was our last game together, last time sharing the court together, so it was emotional but they were all happy emotions.”
The culmination of four years at Perk Valley but many, many years before that even had the normally stoic Quinn Boettinger unable to stop the tears. Boettinger, a 6-foot-3 center bound for Navy, walks onto the court with a game face on and it rarely deviates, even as players climb all over her trying to slow her down.
