GA sophomore Shannon Topley (left) tries to get the ball past Irisa Ye of North Penn High School. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Last week a summer basketball league held at Gwynedd Mercy Academy got underway with not just one local team in the mix, but three.

Since the league’s founding a few years ago Germantown Academy has participated, and now Penn Charter and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy are joining in for the first time. The league features some consistently strong public school programs, along with the defending Catholic Academies ball club from Gwynedd itself.

GA was first to see action in a Wednesday evening contest, overcoming a strong North Penn High School team, 54-43, and in the following game, Penn Charter dispatched Hatboro-Horsham High, 53-33. PC also played in the first game on the schedule on Thursday night, falling to the Gwynedd Mercy Monarchs, 38-24. Thursday’s nightcap saw SCH swing into action, hanging with Pennridge High School into the second half, but ultimately losing, 45-23.

Although GA graduated a strong senior class, the Patriots still have a good deal of returning talent along with a number of skilled younger players who are making their way onto the varsity squad.

Only a couple of the team’s incoming freshmen were present for the summer league debut last week, and standout junior guard Cat Polisano was home sick. On the other side, North Penn was playing its second straight game that evening after easily dispatching Lansdale Catholic, but the Maidens, like GA, have a deep roster with plenty of reserves.

Guard Abby Starzecky, a rising senior, figured into the early scoring for the Patriots, and when sophomore shooting guard Rachel Balzer canned her second three-pointer, North Penn called time-out, trailing 15-11 about eight minutes into the first of the running-clock 20-minute halves.

A little later, the Maidens had the gap down to a single point, but then GA started a run with a driving lay-up by sophomore Shannon Topley and a transition bucket by junior Alexa Naessens that was assisted by fellow forward Lilly Bolen, a senior. Another 10th-grader, Taylor Putnam, hit a three-pointer and a shorter jumper, and the Patriots were suddenly up by 10 points, 27-17.

The momentum shifted back to the Maidens briefly, and at halftime Germantown was ahead by five, 31-26. In the second half, as in the first, GA’s first points came from a Balzer trey. North Penn approached within two points after a few minutes, then with Bolen and Balzer scoring inside and out the Patriots drew away again, and more than halfway through the period they owned a comfortable 42-36 lead.

Fatigue appeared to hamper North Penn’s shooting accuracy, along with the fact the GA defenders were picking up on the Maidens’ tendencies. The Lansdale lasses weren’t able to generate a meaningful rally, although they closed the contest with two free throws and a three-pointer to bring the gap down close to single digits, with GA winning, 54-43.

Balzer finished with 15 points and Bolen with 11, and the winners received seven apiece from Naessens and Putnam.

Penn Charter will definitely have a new look going forward thanks to the graduation of two five-year starters, one of whom was the school’s all-time leading scorer. In the opening week of the Gwynedd League, the Quakers were thin on the ground, with very few reserve players.

Fortunately, they opened with one of the weaker teams on the schedule. Hatboro Horsham.

A lay-up and a three-point field goal by Lexi Hnatkowski and an old-time three-point play by fellow senior Mireyah Davis got PC going, along with a drive by freshman Lizzie McLaughlin, who’ll be a new student at Penn Charter this fall. Later on, sophomore guard Emma Maley chipped in with two triples, and it looked like the game was going to completely get away from the Hatters, who were behind 22-8.

However, late in the half Hatboro heaved in three treys of its own, and was only down 27-19 at the break.

PC pulled away again in the second half as a third senior, forward Julie Webb, got onto the scoring stats and sophomore Abby Manion converted an and-one play. Eight minutes in, the Quakers were up by 20 (43-23), and this time the Hatters couldn’t make a dent in their deficit. Charter was ahead by two dozen before Hatboro scored the last four points to make it a 53-33 final.

Incoming freshman guard Carmen Williams scored eight points and Hnatkowsky led the Quakers with 13.

The next night it took awhile for PC to get together five players to start the game, and when the contest began the scoreboard moved very slowly. For 15 minutes McLaughlin’s lay-up off of a steal was the only field goal on record, and the Quakers also managed three free throws for a 5-0 advantage.

Gwynedd junior Carly Heineman finally broke the drought for the Monarchs, who were back within three by halftime, 10-7. Gwynedd graduated four players from last year’s Catholic Academies championship squad, including a forward who was the league MVP and a talented shooting guard.

Penn Charter senior Mireyah Davis (center) holds onto a rebound while surrounded by hostile Hatters. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

There’s a good amount of talent returning, though, and the Monarchs began to play as expected in the second period. After the teams reached a 13-13 tie a few minutes into the new half, Gwynedd scored eight straight points and then led the rest of the way as junior guard Maura Conroy came on from the three-point line. Davis scored nine points and McLaughlin contributed seven points toward the 38-24 final.

Making its summer debut in the last game on Thursday night, SCH came in without two longtime varsity players who would be getting their walking papers the following week along with the rest of the class of 2016. In addition, several underclassmen who saw a good amount of varsity minutes last winter will not be playing summer hoops due to injury or conflicting activities.

Veteran senior starter Chloe Burns was out at Gwynedd to lead the Blue Devils along with her classmate and fellow forward, Sydney Crawford.

Perkasie’s Pennridge Rams charged to a 13-5 lead over the Blue Devils, whose early points came from a pair of free throws from sophomore forward Caroline Clark and a three-pointer from her classmate Kara Kniezewski, a guard. Kniezewski, like Burns, is a graduate of Norwood Fontbonne Academy.

SCH was able to dig in and avoid giving up more ground during the remainder of the first half. Kniezewski bagged another trey, and at the one-minute mark Burns banked in a shot from near the foul line. Guard Joelle Bridges, a transfer from Mastery Charter who will enter Springside Chestnut Hill as a junior, stuck a “three” from the left wing to close out the period, with Pennridge holding a 20-13 lead at the intermission.

The first Blue Devils field goal of the second stanza was another triple by Bridges, and that was followed by a bucket from Clark and a lay-up from Maya Gerlach, a tall forward who has just finished the seventh grade at SCH. This allowed the locals to match the Bucks County bunch point-for-point up to 27-20, but after that their side of the scoreboard refused to budge while the Rams continued to score.

In fact, Pennridge would run off 18 straight points before the Blue Devils completed the final score with two free throws by Clark and one by Crawford.