Penn Charter freshman Carmen Williams (with ball) is pictured in a game last Tuesday along with Germantown Academy sophomore Shannon Topley. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

For the girls of both Penn Charter and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, the basketball season came to an end in their first games in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) tournament, but those two contests played out in very different ways.

In the first round of the tourney, there was a fairly straightforward exit for eighth-seeded SCH on Tuesday, when the Blue Devils fell behind early and lost to number nine Friends Central, 71-51. Both fifth-seeded PC and fourth-ranked Shipley School had earned first-round byes, and when they met in a quarterfinal bout at Shipley last Friday, the Quakers enjoyed a 38-35 lead a few minutes into the fourth quarter.

The host Gators moved ahead, but Charter then tied the game to send it into overtime at 43-all. Just as it looked like the issue might not be decided during that first extra session, a Shipley lay-up with three seconds left gave the Gators a 51-49 victory.

The Quakers shut down for the season with an overall record of 14-13 after finishing with a 7-5 Inter-Ac League mark that left them in a tie for third place with the Academy of Notre Dame. Springside Chestnut Hill finished fifth in the league with an 4-8 record, and wound up 10-16 overall.

Between SCH and Friends Central, there was a 40-point swing between last week's clash and a meeting back in the middle of December. The Phoenix, regrouping with a young line-up, had lost to the Blue Devils by a score of 54-34 the first time.

Last week FC was up by 10 points at the intermission, and was able to double that lead in the second half. Junior forward Nya Seawright gave Springside Chestnut Hill a team-high 15 points, with senior Chloe Burns adding nine points, sophomore Caroline Clark, eight, and junior Destiny Rogers, six. Sophomores Raanee Smith and Nia Jordan powered the Phoenix with 24 and 18 points, respectively.

Burns, a forward who came from Norwood Fontbonne Academy and will now head to the University of Scranton, is the only member of the SCH roster who will graduate. Searight, a transfer from John W. Hallahan High School, quickly established herself as an offensive force for the Blue Devils this season, and has already passed the 1000-point scoring milestone as a junior.

On Friday at Shipley, Gators sophomore Anna Camden, a 6'2" NCAA Division I prospect, scored six of her eight first-quarter points right at the outset to give the hosts a 6-0 advantage. Penn Charter senior forward Mireyah Davis, who will go on to play for NYU, scored a lay-up in transition and netted two short jumpers to help get the visitors back in it.

Coming off the PC bench, freshman guard Lizzie McLaughlin made two three-point shots later in the first frame, but Shipley senior Yndiah Bobo (Clarion University) and sophomore Elizabeth Taluto each hit two shorter field goals and the Gators took a 16-12 lead into the second quarter.

In the new period, PC freshman starter Kait Carter netted two early free throws, and later her classmate Hayley Hunt came off the bench and added two field goals to supplement six more points from Davis. PC caught a break with 3:14 left in the half as Shipley's Camden was whistled for her third personal foul and was removed to the bench.

Partly because of her foul difficulties, but also due to good defense by the Quakers, the Gators' promising young post player would be held to five points the rest of the way after scoring eight in the first five minutes of the game.

Shipley head coach Sean Costello commented, "They did a good job of jamming up the paint and helping out on kids. We didn't get as many touches in there as we would like to."

Charter won the quarter, 12-9, but still trailed 25-24 at halftime.

As Quakers head coach Joe Maguire remarked afterwards, "We didn't capitalize as much as we should have when their big girl got into foul trouble."

Even though Camden acquired her fourth foul little more than halfway through the third quarter and once again had to sit for a spell, Shipley edged farther ahead. The Gators regained the four-point advantage they'd owned at the end of the first stanza, heading into the fourth period up 33-29.

"We tried to emphasize that we wanted to get Rey touches on the ball," Maguire said, "but we shot too many three's without trying to get the ball inside."

In addition, Penn Charter was beginning to catch up to Shipley in the foul column. With more than two minutes left in the fourth frame, both Davis and fellow senior Lexi Hnatkowsky (a guard who will play for Ursinus College) had four personals apiece.

"It's always tough when some of your key players get into foul trouble," Shipley's Costello said. "At least they were kind of going through the same thing as us."

PC could not really afford to spare Davis; she was doing a lot to keep the Quakers close. She started the quarter with a coast-to-coast scoring romp off of a defensive rebound, then went four-for-four at the free throw line before converting off of the offensive boards for a lay-up.

While Camden was stationed on the Shipley bench, Bobo picked up some of the scoring slack, and fellow guard Lauren Ross (a 5'8" sophomore) would chalk up 12 of her team high 18 points in the second half and overtime. Although the Gators shot a lackluster five-for-10 at the free throw line during the fourth quarter, they still took a 43-40 lead into the final minute of regulation play, and Charter's Hnatkowsky was out of the game with five fouls.

Carter buried a three-pointer from the right wing to tie it up, and Penn Charter called time-out with 49.2 seconds on the clock. Each team turned the ball over when play resumed, then the Quakers held the ball for the last shot. Davis drove in and put a shot up, but she got neither the basket nor a foul call, and the teams headed to overtime at 43-all.

Preparing his club for the additional period, Shipley skipper Costello said, "I told them I thought we were defending relatively well, and I told them that on offense we had to get to the rim and not settle for jumps shots. The way the game was being called, there were a lot of whistles both ways."

Back on the floor for the four-minute OT, Shipley's Camden followed in a missed shot by Bobo, but PC's Hunt hit one of two free throws and then Carter scored off of an offensive rebound. When the Gators' Casey Winter (another 5'8" sophomore) committed her fourth foul, Davis deposited both of the resulting free throws to give the visitors a 48-45 advantage.

Shipley's Ross and the Quakers' Williams exchanged single free throws, but it wasn't exactly an even trade since the foul on Ross had been committed by PC's Davis, and it was her fifth.

Now Charter had freshmen Carter, Hunt, McLaughlin, and Williams on the floor along with sophomore guard Emma Maley.

"If you wanted to see what our future team looks like, you got to see a preview in a state tournament game," remarked the Quakers' Maguire. "I even sort of consider Emma a redshirt freshman because she was hurt pretty early in the season last year."

Midway through the OT, Bobo drove in to move the hosts within one point of PC. The clock was down to 66 seconds when Ross made one of two free throws for Shipley to forge a 49-49 tie.

When the ball came loose in front of the PC bench, Hunt successfully wrestled a Gator for it and her team called time-out with 47.3 ticks to go. Penn Charter missed a pair of lay-ups, and the second shot was rebounded by Camden for the home team, which huddled for a time-out with 14 seconds remaining.

Speaking of Camden, the Gators' Costello explained, "On that last play, we definitely wanted the ball to go through her. We had her step to the ball and then cut off it, and we were fortunate enough to find her on the move and get a lay-up."

On the sophomore's shot, the ball tantalized everyone briefly by bouncing several times on the rim before falling through with three seconds to go. PC could not get off a shot, and the Quakers' season was over.

Along with Davis and her two-dozen points, Penn Charter had Carter in double figures with 10, while McLaughlin came away with six points and Hunt with five. Williams and Maley added three points and one point, respectively. The double-digit scorers for the Gators, Ross (18), Bobo (13), and Camden (13), were supported by Taluto, with four points, and Winter, with three.

From last Friday's starting line-up, the Quakers will graduate Davis, Hnatkowsky, and forward Julie Webb, but the team will add some talent from this winter's strong middle school team.

"We have six of our nine rotation players back, and four of them will still only be sophomores," Maguire pointed out. "Our young players saw a lot of time this year and they were in a lot of high-pressure situations. They learned a lot and they grew a lot, and now there's not much you could throw at them that they haven't seen already."