Author: delcohoops

By Matt Smith

The members of the Garnet Valley girls basketball team are enjoying every moment of their run – many would call it an unlikely run – in the PIAA Class 6A tournament.

The Jaguars pulled off another shocker Friday night at Bensalem High. Their big three of Haylie Adamski, Kylie Mulholland and Emily Olsen combined for the lion’s share of offense in a 58-51 triumph over North Penn in the state quarterfinal round.

One player who didn’t score a single point but made the biggest impact was Savannah Saunders, the Jags’ defensive ace.

Saunders is always told ahead of time that her No. 1 job is to guard the opposing team’s best player. It’s a test she has passed many times over this season. She faced perhaps her toughest challenge Friday against Caleigh Sperling, North Penn’s dynamic senior guard who dropped 30 points in the District 1 playbacks against Haverford last month.

Saunders, a junior small forward/guard, delivered. She came away with three steals in the first quarter and made life difficult for the superstar Sperling, who managed only three made baskets and 11 points on the night. Thanks to Saunders, Garnet Valley’s biggest concern was a non-factor.

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By Bob Grotz

One sequence embodied the heady play of Cardinal O’Hara in its 49-35 win over top seeded and highly regarded Perkiomen Valley Friday in the quarterfinal round of the PIAA Class 6A playoffs.

With the third quarter winding down the Lions were holding a five-point lead and looking for a last shot. For a moment it looked like the Vikings’ frenetic defense had forced a stop. But the Lions skillfully swung the ball this way and that, inside and out until Molly Rullo found younger sister Megan outside the arc.

Faster than you could say, boom, and-1, the shot fell and Megan was fouled on the play. She hit the free throw for a rare four-point play sending the Lions (24-4) into the final frame with a nine-point lead.

The Vikings (29-2), the top seed out of District 1 who had lost only to nationally ranked Gill St. Bernard’s private school in northern New Jersey, never got closer than eight points the rest of the evening.

“They were doubling and we got it into the post,” Megan Rullo said. “Molly kicked it out, I was ready to shoot and let it go. Coach Chrissie (Doogan) always talks about getting your teammate the shot, that it’s not about getting your own shot, reverse the ball. And that’s what we really did. And we knocked down the shots that mattered.”

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By Matthew DeGeorge

There was a look of resignation, however brief, among the Archbishop Carroll girls basketball players after the third, then fourth look rimmed out Friday night.

The clock on its season ticking under two minutes, Carroll players were on the Pottstown High School floor against Parkland, battling for rebounds, stepping over bodies, getting teammates open. Those shots just weren’t falling.

That’s how Carroll’s reign as PIAA Class 6A championship ended Friday night, with a clang of iron multiplied too often and a 48-37 setback to District 11 champion Parkland.

The Patriots (20-9) shot just 13-for-56 from the field (23.2 percent) and 3-for-25 from 3-point range. Even if that was embellished by fourth-quarter desperation, it was end to end frustration for the Patriots Friday night.

“The shots weren’t falling tonight,” guard Alexis Eberz said. “But you’ve got to bounce back. … Especially when we’re down, it’s hard when shots aren’t falling. But you’ve got to keep your head up. You’ve got to keep shooting.”

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By Matthew DeGeorge

The book said that Archbishop Carroll was in danger of getting caught looking ahead Friday night. Instead, coach Francis Bowe made a disorganized team focus its eyes backward at halftime.

The team that Carroll might play next in the PIAA Class 4A tournament, Neumann-Goretti, had beaten the team it was playing Friday at Pottstown, Carver Engineering and Sciences, in the District 12 final, and handily. So the fact that Carver was within two of Carroll at half was cause for some concern in the Patriots’ locker room.

“He just mentioned Neumann to us,” point guard Darrell Davis said. “He said Neumann beat them by 40, and they’re looking like they’re a better team than us. We took that to heart.”

They took it to the scoreboard, too, scoring 21 of the first 23 points of the second half to roar into a second state semifinal in three years with a 60-42 decision. The reward is a date Monday with either Scranton Prep or the Saints, to whom Carroll dropped a heartbreaking 89-83 game in the PCL playoffs.

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By Andrew Robinson

It was some of the very first advice Carly Coleman got when she started playing basketball, and it served her well over and over again Friday night.

The Cardinal O’Hara girls basketball senior has always believed, thanks to her dad’s direction, there’s no better way to get the ball than to rebound it. When those rebounds come off her own teammates’ misses, it’s all the better, especially during a PIAA quarterfinal game against a top team in the state.

O’Hara’s relentless rebound, dogged defense, opportunistic offense and general toughness powered the Lions as they ended Perkiomen Valley’s season, 49-35 in the Class 6A quarterfinals at Norristown High School.

“It’s the heart for me,” Coleman said. “My dad always tells me to go up for rebounds because you never know. Nobody’s going to make every shot they take, so I think knowing there are extra possessions and extra points you can get is a huge deal.”

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By CoBL Staff

All the local participants in the girls’ 2A and 3A state playoff brackets have been eliminated — but the 6A field is more than picking up the slack. 

Six of the eight state quarterfinalists are from the Philly ‘burbs, including four teams from District 1 — Perkiomen Valley, Spring-Ford, North Penn and Garnet Valley — and two from District 12, Archbishop Carroll and Cardinal O’Hara. That means each of the four quarterfinals feature at least one local squad, including two all-local matchups.

Here’s a close look at all four:

Girls 6A: 1-1 Perkiomen Valley vs. 12-2 Cardinal O’Hara (6 PM, Norristown)

This year’s 6A bracket is a little strange: typically Catholic League squads wouldn’t be both the first and second seed out of District 12 6A; the District 12 championship game is usually Catholic League vs. Public League, but a forfeit by Northeast High bumped O’Hara up from the 12-3 spot into 12-2, Dobbins sliding up to take the final spot in the state tournament. So instead of a PV/O’Hara matchup taking place in the second round, it comes in the quarterfinals, PV having beaten Manheim Township and then Haverford High to advance a round further than it did a year ago.

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By Owen McCue

The Spring-Ford boys basketball team moved into unprecedented territory with each state playoff win last season.

Prior to the 2022-23 campaign, the Rams had just one PIAA victory in program history. They quadrupled that number to four with last season’s run to state semis. 

A 45-32 win over Springfield (Delco.) in Wednesday’s PIAA 6A second round gave the Rams a sixth state playoff victory and a second straight run to the quarterfinal round — something they are not taking lightly even though they made it look routine.

“Tomorrow’s not promised,” Spring-Ford senior guard E.J. Campbell said. “We could have lost this game. We could have not had practice tomorrow. I’m thankful we have practice tomorrow. We just want to keep having practices and having games. … I’m one of two seniors, so I just go into each game going this could be my last game, so I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.” 

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Webmaster’s note: If you missed the game or would like to watch it again go to our Archived Broadcast page.

By Matthew DeGeorge

Spring-Ford did not have the District 1 Class 6A tournament it had anticipated this year.

A state semifinalist last year with most of its squad back, winner of 17 games in the regular season and the third seed from district – a quarterfinal exit was not what a team harboring title aspirations had hoped for.

The results in states are better, if the basketball remains laborious given the Rams’ talent.

Against a Springfield team that had battled tooth and nail in de facto elimination games since the end of January, Spring-Ford rode the brake pedal in neutral to a 45-32 win in a PIAA Class 6A quarterfinal game at Norristown High School Wednesday night.

Springfield (14-15) stuck within single digits until early in the fourth quarter despite not scoring in double figures in any quarter until the fourth. Spring-Ford got zero made field goals from Jacob Nguyen, one of two Rams with Division I offers, and Springfield hustled to the tune of 15 offensive rebounds out of sheer determination.

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Webmaster’s note: If you missed the game or would like to watch it again go to our Archived Broadcast page.

By Matt Smith

Those who follow the Garnet Valley girls basketball team are not surprised to see it have success in the PIAA playoffs.

Under longtime coach Joe Woods, the Jaguars have competed for, and won, a District 1 championship in the state’s highest classification. They win a lot of games and make a run in states every season. Five years ago the program played for a Class 6A title in Hershey.

So here the Jags are preparing for a Class 6A quarterfinal round matchup with North Penn Friday night at Bensalem. They are one of three girls teams from Delco left standing, alongside Archbishop Carroll and Cardinal O’Hara.

As the sixth-place team from District 1 the Jags have survived this long while their two Central League rivals Haverford and Conestoga were eliminated in the second round. All of Garnet Valley’s six losses came courtesy of those two squads.

The Jags are on the opposite side of the state bracket and began the tourney traveling to unfamiliar territory. In their first-round game at Easton, District 11’s second-place team, the Jags found themselves trailing 16-2 after one quarter, but clawed all the way back and won in overtime.

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