Delcohoops.com

By Corky Blake

Archbishop Carroll’s girls basketball team was in desperate need of a spark in the first half of its PIAA Class 6A quarterfinal game against Central Dauphin on Friday night at Liberty High School’s Memorial Gym.

The District 12 champion Patriots offensively scuffled through the first quarter shooting 3-for-13 overall while not making one visit to the free throw line. They trailed 8-7 entering the second quarter despite forcing nine Central Dauphin turnovers.

When her team was unable to inbound the ball under its basket and was whistled for a five-seconds infraction, Archbishop Carroll coach Renie Shields looked to her left and summoned Maddie McFillin to enter the game – for the first time all season.

McFillin’s last organized basketball game came to a crashing halt last spring in a travel team tournament in Atlantic City. She tore the ACL in her left knee when a part of the temporary court gave way.

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By Joseph Santoliquito

By Matthew DeGeorge

Devon Nelson lingered over the question in the immediate aftermath Friday night, and every millisecond seemed totally explicable.

How had Bonner & Prendergast – which led by six points early in the fourth quarter, which had threatened all night to run away from an objectively less talented Upper Moreland team, that had a shot to win the game in the final moments – seen its season end in the PIAA Class 5A quarterfinals? How had a team that so thoroughly dominated District 1 champion Upper Dublin on Tuesday allow the fourth-place finisher in the district to dictate pace, dictate the shots it took late and ultimately hang around long enough to sneak away with a 46-45 win and get within a victory of Hershey at the Friars’ expense?

“I think this was 100 percent a game we could have won,” Nelson said.

That’s the truth, even in the face of 21 points from Colson Campbell, even with 13 Friars turnovers and seven missed three throws, even as late Jakeem Carroll’s pull-up from the free-throw line with two seconds left hitting back iron and bouncing teasingly high but safely into the waiting hands of an earthbound Larry Hughes to run out the clock and send the Golden Bears, who had never won a states game before this tournament, to their first state semifinal.

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By Evan Hartenstein

Leading by five with just over 30 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, it looked like Penncrest was going to move on to the PIAA Class 5A state semis.

But Deshawn Yates and Neumann-Goretti had other plans.

The junior standout had a game to remember against Penncrest in the quarterfinals, putting up 34 points. He scored 26 of those points after the half, and his clutch play late in the game helped Neumann pull away for a 76-69 overtime win at Norristown Area High School. 

Neumann-Goretti moves on to take on Upper Moreland next Friday in the 5A state semifinals. The Golden Bears, having their best season in program history, beat Bonner-Prendergast by one point earlier in the evening at Norristown. 

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By David Comer

The smile plastered on Upper Moreland senior Colson Campbell’s face after he scored 22 points to lead his team to a come-from-behind 46-45 win over Bonner-Prendergast in a PIAA 5A quarterfinal game on Friday night offered no hint as to the grueling five days that preceded it.

During practice Monday in preparation for his team’s second-round PIAA 5A game, Campbell leaped for a rebound like he had done so many before, but this time – at the worst possible moment – he got tangled up with a teammate and rolled his left ankle when he landed.

“I thought I broke it,” Campbell said. “I thought my season was over.”

Campbell’s toughness coupled with lots of ice enabled him to play Tuesday night in an overtime victory over York Suburban; he scored five of his eight points in OT.

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