NCAA Summer League kicks off for 2012

Posted 6/25/12

[caption id="attachment_14576" align="alignleft" width="251" caption="Team Ash Gray’s Aimeé Bouie, a post player who is transferring into Chestnut Hill College as a junior, battles for rebounding …

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NCAA Summer League kicks off for 2012

Posted
[caption id="attachment_14576" align="alignleft" width="251" caption="Team Ash Gray’s Aimeé Bouie, a post player who is transferring into Chestnut Hill College as a junior, battles for rebounding position against Shannon Barlow of Team Gold in an NCAA Summer League game. In the background at right is recent Mount St. Joseph Academy graduate Bridget Higgins. (Photo by Tom Utescher)"][/caption]

by Tom Utescher

Current and former hoops standouts from area schools took to the court last Tuesday evening as action got underway in the Philadelphia/Suburban Women’s NCAA Summer Basketball League.

Teams in the league aren’t allowed to have more than three players from any one Division I college on their roster, but that limit doesn’t apply to Division II teams. This summer the “Ash Gray” squad includes five Chestnut Hill College athletes, along with 2011 Springside graduate Brenna Coll, who has just finished her freshman year at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown.

The Orange team is composed entirely of women from Philadelphia University, which belongs to Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference along with Chestnut Hill. A new addition for Philly U. for the coming year is shooting guard Monica Schacker, a 2011 Germantown Academy grad who has transferred in from the University of New Haven.

Another CACC franchise, Holy Family University, is playing summer league ball as a single unit and is designated Royal Blue. Team Gold, chiefly a mixture of Division I and Division III players, includes guard Bridget Higgins, who just graduated from Mount St. Joseph Academy earlier this month. She’ll be attending the University of Pittsburgh, where she will try her luck as a walk-on.

The two-time defending league champions, now back to their old name of “Lime” Green after being designated “Kelly” Green in 2011, features Mount St. Joe alumna Elle Hagedorn (Harvard ’13) and is coached by her father, Ted, along with Tom Freedman. The line-up for the Limeys also includes former Girls Inter-Ac League stars such as Academy of Notre Dame’s Katie Kuester (St. Joseph’s ‘12) and Devon Kane (Villanova ‘13), along one of the younger Hagedorn’s former foes in the Catholic Academies League, Nazareth grad Lindsay Fluehr (Scranton ’15).

On Tuesday, Team Ted jumped out early against Royal Blue (Holy Family), who had to call a time-out with 6:41 left in the first half after falling behind 24-6. The gap continued to grow, however, with Lime leading 32-10 at the half and ultimately winning, 72-37. Meg Pearson (Archbishop Carroll/Villanova) netted all of her team-high 15 points on three-point field goals, and Dana Mitchell (Pennsbury/St. Bonaventure) had 14 points.

Only two of the five CHC players rostered on Ash Gray showed up on Tuesday, rising sophomore guard Lila Jones and junior transfer Aimee Bouie. Bouie is a 6’1” post player who is coming in from Eastern Kentucky University. Their opponent, Higgins’ Gold team, was hampered by the fact that its Division I players (from Lehigh and St. Joseph’s) were no-shows, and several of them were power forwards or centers. This left the Gold group “short” in more ways than one.

Ash Gray turned a 36-15 halftime advantage into a 69-39 victory, as the speedy, high-leaping Jones rang up 17 points. Higgins put up six points for the gold, who were led by an 11-point effort from fellow guard Lauren Ruhl (Methacton/Lebanon Valley).

The Orange (Phila. U.) team hung with a Purple squad that included a number of Division I players, but finally succumbed, 58-51. Orange got 10 points from Kristen Blye and seven apiece from Tori Arnao and Taylor Peltzer, while Purple was paced by a pair of Division I forwards, Addie Micir from Princeton (11 points) and Marisa Repasch from Lehigh (nine.)

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