Cardinal O’Hara’s Greta Miller, left, moves the ball in the third quarter against Conestoga in the first round of PIAA Class 6A state playoffs Friday evening. (Pete Bannan – MediaNews Group)
By Rob Parent
To learn how to be a successful girls basketball team on the big stages takes time and lessons learned.
Friday night was one of those lessons.
Cardinal O’Hara took advantage of a third-quarter lapse by Conestoga to build a lead and the Lions held on to post a 50-42 victory in the opening round of the PIAA Class 6A tournament at Archbishop Carroll.
The Lions (21-5), the District 12 champions, advance to the second round where they will face Spring-Ford at a time and place to be determined on Tuesday. The Pioneers, the 11th seed out of District 1, ended their season at 21-7.
“I thought we grinded it out,” O’Hara coach Chrissie Doogan said. “We knew Conestoga was much improved. They have a couple of real good players. We wanted to use our transition to get us going. I feel we came out of halftime real strong.”