The 2016-17 Germantown Academy team is pictured after becoming Inter-Ac League co-champion at Penn Charter last Tuesday. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

The final game on the 2016-17 Inter-Ac League girls' basketball schedule was played at Penn Charter last Tuesday afternoon, and the outcome would affect the final rankings for both the host Quakers and the visiting Patriots of Germantown Academy.

PC could wind up with sole possession of third place in the Inter-Ac with a victory, while the opposite outcome would give two-time defending (outright) champion GA a share of this year's title along with Episcopal Academy.

Episcopal had wrapped up league competition the previous Friday with an 11-1 record that included a home-away split with the Patriots. GA (19-9 overall) equaled that mark and became co-champion with EA by capturing a 70-60 victory at Penn Charter, but last week's trip to the title was no pleasure cruise.

Penn Charter used a hot shooting hand to build a 36-32 halftime lead, and after slipping behind by four points by the three-quarter mark, the Quakers tied the contest at 58-all in the middle of the fourth quarter.

Charter didn't score a field goal the rest of the way and GA only had one, but at the foul line the Pats went 10-for-12 while the Quakers were two-for-two.

Junior forward Alexa Naessens (seven rebounds) furnished that final field goal for the victors to cap a game-high 20-point performance, while freshman point guard Maddie Vizza went seven-for-eight at the foul line over the last four minutes and hit three three-point field goals while accumulating 18 points on the day.

Sophomore guard Rachel Balzer (six rebounds) earned most of her 14 points on four three-pointers, while senior guard Abby Starzecky reached double figures as well, putting up 10 points while grabbing five rebounds.

Penn Charter also wound up with four double-digit scorers. Senior forward Mireyah Davis (16) and freshman guard Kait Carter (13) divided their points pretty evenly between the two halves, while senior guard Lexi Hnatkowsky scored all of her 12 points on four three-pointers before halftime.

Freshman guard Carmen Williams posted most of her 10 points after the intermission, leading Charter's charge to tie the game in the fourth quarter. The loss lowered PC into a tie for third place with the Academy of Notre Dame in the final league standings. The Quakers and the Irish each won one of their two head-to-head meetings, while each squad lost twice to GA and EA and swept the other three league teams.

Penn Charter gave GA more of a workout in last week's game than in their first meeting back in mid-January, when the Patriots won a lower-scoring contest, 47-33.

"We didn't make shots in the first game," pointed out Quakers head coach Joe Maguire. "We made them in the first half today, and part of the second half. We had four players score in double figures, and that's the first time we've done that against an opponent of this caliber."

After GA freshman Jaye Haynes (six points) scored off of the opening tip last Tuesday, PC's Carter and GA's Starzecky accounted for the rest of the points in the opening two minutes. Davis and Naessens got going on the inside for the Quakers and Patriots, and GA's Vizza earned her first points on a lay-up that tied the game at 10-10.

A score from the paint by sophomore guard Emma Maley and the first "three" of the day for Hnatkowsky afforded Charter a 15-10 advantage with 2:18 remaining in the first period. Maley would only score one more point in the game, but she displayed intense effort, many times slicing between the big girls to grab rebounds through sheer hustle.

Germantown countered the 5-0 PC spurt with back-to-back three-pointers by Vizza and Balzer, and in the final seconds Haynes made a successful drive to end the quarter with an 18-15 lead for the Pats.

Balzer stuck a 15-footer to bump the lead up to five points at the dawn of the second period, but the Quakers would outscore their guests 21-12 in the remainder of the first half. Hnatkowsky sandwiched two three-pointers from the right wing around one from the left, and freshman guard Lizzie McLaughlin came off the bench to bag two consecutive treys.

From closer range, Carter scored on a fast break and Williams on a baseline drive, then at the end the Quakers lobbed the ball in to Davis for a bucket from under the hoop, making it 36-32 at the break.

"They were on fire in the first half; they hit seven three-pointers," observed GA head coach Sherri Retif. "On defense we were trying to switch on the handoffs and sometimes we lost our player, but overall we did a better job in the second half. We thought if we could score another 32 points in the second half we would win, because they were probably going to cool off. On offense one of the goals was to get the ball to Alexa on the block, where she could either score or draw a foul."

The second half began with a PC foul and two made free throws by Naessens. In terms of scoring, there was almost an exact reversal of fortune in the third period. This favored the visitors, 22-14, with the Patriots gaining most of that advantage at the very end.

A few minutes in, Charter had actually increased its lead to five points (41-36) when Williams stuck a "three" from the keytop. After GA inched ahead briefly, 48-47, on a short jumper by Starzecky, Davis hit a field goal and then the front end of a one-and-one to give the hosts a 50-48 edge early in the final minute of round three.

Naessens then tied it with a pair of free throws, and GA freshman guard Maddie Burns made the first of two foul shots as the Patriots got into the one-and-one. With five ticks to go, a Balzer bulls-eye from the three-point arc sent the visitors into round four ahead 54-50.

A little past the halfway point of the third period, the Quakers only had two team fouls to GA's six, but now they were catching up. After a lay-up by Naessens and a triple by PC's Williams made it 56-53 early in the final chapter, the next two foul calls gave each team a total of nine violations. In addition, Germantown's Starzecky and Charter's Maley now each had four personals on their rap sheets.

While these two infractions wound up producing no points for PC and two for GA (by Starzecky), the Quakers now had freshmen Carter and Williams ring up a three-pointer and a short baseline jumper, respectively. Penn Charter had pulled even at 58-all with four-and-a-half minutes left.

The Patriots called time-out with 4:14 remaining, and when play resumed, not much went right for the Quakers. They would only add two more points to the home side of the scoreboard, and that was on a pair of Davis free throws in the final minute after the visitors had gone up 69-58.

Speaking more of the second half as a whole, PC's Maguire said, "There were too many little things we did wrong, missing the front end of one-and-one's, foul shots where we didn't get the rebound. We started the second half with two straight turnovers. We had a stretch where we had wide-open three's or a drive and we just missed, and that hurt us."

GA moved ahead as Vizza culled six points from three trips to the foul line, with Naessens adding a short jumper on an inbounds play during this stretch. Naessens then made two from the charity stripe as Hnatkowsky had to take a seat with her fifth foul with 67 seconds left, and then PC's Maley went over the limit and Vizza made one of two free throws on offer for a 69-60 tally.

"I thought Maddie Vizza did an incredible job running the offense, handling the ball, and nailing her free throws at the end," Retif said.

GA had committed its ninth team foul in the first minute of the period, and the Quakers finally got into the double bonus with 35 seconds to go. Davis made both foul shots, then Patriots sophomore Shannon Topley hit the first of two free throws with 20 seconds left to lock in the final score.

Seeded fifth in the Pa. Independent Schools tournament, the Quakers were slated to open play against number four Shipley at the end of the week.

Heading into the postseason, Maguire remarked, "We need to have a sense of urgency on every possession, or you're looking at the end to the season. Today we had that in the first 16 minutes, but only parts of the second half."

Seeded third for the PAIS event, the Patriots would await the outcome of a first-round game between sixth-seeded Hill School and number 11 Agnes Irwin.

In the medical sense, Germantown Academy limped to the end of the regular season. Junior guard Cat Polisano, already committed to Fordham University, suffered a season-ending injury even before the opening game. In late January two seniors, starting forward Lilly Bolen and reserve guard Jess Sheridan, went down on consecutive days and would not return. Both Haynes and Naessens were under the weather for last Tuesday's game at PC.

An emotional Retif said afterward, "When you lose three players, and you watch their friends step up - no matter how young those friends are - well, it means a lot for me to see them answer the call in that way. They did it united, they did it as a team."