Patriots senior Erin Lindahl (right) goes past Caitlin Clark of Notre Dame on her way to the basket. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Host Germantown Academy had led by eight points in the middle of the second quarter, but the Irish of the Academy of Notre Dame tied the game at 20-all early in the final minute. In the last 24 seconds, Patriots senior guard Erin Lindahl drove the lane for a lay-up and then made the first of two free throws with a fraction of a tick on the clock.

GA enjoyed a 23-20 edge at the intermission, and Notre Dame would not be able to catch up again as the Pats pulled away in a 19-8 third quarter. The hosts continued on to a 53-32 victory that had them standing alone atop the Inter-Ac at 5-0, with a 15-2 record overall. The Irish, who also had entered the contest unbeaten in the league, recrossed the Schuylkill at 5-1, 11-2.

Lindahl, who’s headed to Emory University, led all scorers with 15 points while using her quickness to collect seven rebounds. Although senior forward Lauren Oeth has kept a relatively low profile in the scoring column this season, she raised her game when it really mattered. Fundamentally sound and unflappable, the Bloomsburg-bound Oeth led GA in the first half with eight points, then finished with 12 points, 13 boards, and four steals.

The Patriots had a third senior close to double digits, as guard Kendall Grasela (who’ll play at Penn) posted nine points along with five assists. Fellow starters Cat Polisano (a sophomore guard) and Lilly Bolen (a junior forward) scored six and four points, respectively, and rounding out Germantown’s total were freshman Rachel Balzer, with three points, and junior Abby Starzecky and sophomore Alexa Naessens (three steals) with two points apiece.

The only Notre Dame player with more than five points in the game was freshman Mandy McGurk. The younger sister of former Notre Dame star Megan McGurk (now a starter at Bucknell University), the ninth-grade guard put up a team-high 10 points for the Irish, providing eight of her team’s 20 points in the first half.

Going into the game, the lone loss in Notre Dame’s ledger was a 38-30 non-league defeat at the hands of Gwynedd Mercy Academy. In an extended preseason scrimmage, Germantown Academy had outscored the GMA Monarchs by a modest margin.

For the defending Inter-Ac champion Patriots, Episcopal Academy has been their primary rival in the league for the last few seasons, but for decades before that, contests between GA and Notre Dame almost invariably decided which team would wear the crown.

Patriots ninth-grader Balzer was a new participant in the longstanding rivalry, but she’d heard plenty about it, particularly because the Irish, with true size in the post this season, have their strongest team in a number of years.

“The older girls were all talking about Notre Dame and how important this game would be,” the freshman related. “Our last practice before the game was amazing, and the seniors brought the intensity level way up.”

In contrast to many past seasons, the visitors from Villanova had a slight height advantage over GA. Oeth is listed at 5’11” while fellow senior Rachel Ryan of the Irish is billed at six feet even, and in the sophomore class, Notre Dame’s 6’2” starting center, Katie Mayock (a sophomore transfer from Conestoga High School), has an inch over Germantown’s tallest player, Naessens.

Balzer noted, “Notre Dame likes to crash the offensive boards really hard and Coach Refif really wanted us to work on rebounding. Our post players, Lauren, Lilly, and Lex, did a great job handling that part of the game.”

Retif herself reflected, “I thought that our post players showed a lot of versatility, and Lauren looked to score a little bit more than she normally does.”

Naessens usually comes in off the bench to spell the 5’11” Bolen, and last Friday she had to take the floor early on as Bolen committed her second personal foul just two minutes and 12 seconds into the action. The Pats were leading 1-0 at the time thanks to an Oeth free throw, then Lindahl checked off the game’s first field goal by sticking a jumper from the right wing.

Left open at the top of the key, Oeth went for and made a three-point attempt for a 6-0 tally a little more than halfway through the opening quarter. One free throw by Mayock and then two by McGurk (on GA’s seventh team foul) closed the score up to 6-3 by the end of the period.

Mayock was not on the floor for the Irish at the start of round two, but the visitors’ other “big”, Ryan, immediately scored from the paint off a pass from senior point guard Caitlin Clark. Before two minutes was up, though, a lay-up by Polisano, a converted offensive rebound by Oeth, and a coast-to-coast romp by Grasela spread things out to 12-5.

AND junior guard Casey Walsh then deposited a three-pointer from the right flank, and that first triple by Notre Dame is always worrying to opponents of the Irish. The three-ball is almost their trademark; four different players had combined to sink eight of them when the Sproul Road squad chalked up an 18-point Inter-Ac win over Penn Charter three days before Christmas.

A little later, with GA up by half-a-dozen, McGurk hit a triple from the left corner, making it 20-17 with under two minutes left in the half.

However, this was the last trey that would drop for Notre Dame that evening.

“You have to play a man-to-man defense to limit their three-point shots,” observed GA mentor Retif. “A lot of times, they score their three’s in transition, and I thought our girls did a good job of getting back down the court and stopping that from happening.”

In the middle of the second quarter, GA had received field goals from the paint by Oeth, Polisano, Bolen, and Starzecky. After McGurk deposited her triple to bring the Irish within three points of their hosts, she nailed one free throw and then junior forward Tess Phillip hit two from the stripe, tying the game at 20-all about 40 seconds before halftime.

In the final reckoning, the free-throw figures for the two teams would be similar, GA ending up 15-for-23 while Notre Dame was 14-for-22. Their performances varied widely in each half, though. The Pats could’ve had a more comfortable lead at the interlude if they’d made more than two of their eight foul shots. Notre Dame, on the other hand, derived half of its points before the break from free throws – the Irish cashed in on 10 of their 14 attempts.

As the first half wound down, Lindahl drove the lane for a lay-up that put the Patriots back in the lead. GA would get one more possession before the buzzer, and the senior guard drew a foul with four-tenths of a second on the clock. She made the first of two freebies for a 23-20 halftime tally.

Lindahl had taken a fairly hard fall on her knee during the second period. She was helped up slowly, was checked out on the sideline by the trainer, and cleared to continue playing. There would be pain, but she wouldn’t be doing any structural damage by rejoining the fray.

Once that situation was resolved, it became more likely that GA would lose a player through foul trouble than injury. Bolen had three personals at halftime, Polisano committed her third in the opening minute of the third quarter, and Oeth and Naessens each began that period with two fouls, as well.

Balzer said that as players were recalled to the bench with a second or third personal, “The coaches told them ‘settle down, use your feet, stop reaching.’ The reaching has been a problem for us this season, though we’ve been getting better with that. I think all the hype with this game contributed to all the fouls in the first half, but we came back out in the second half more calm and focused.”

The Pats backslid briefly at the start of the third quarter, committing a shooting foul that allowed Walsh to make it a one-point game. One minute in, Grasela dished the ball to Lindahl for a three-pointer from the keytop, then each of them drew a foul and went two-for-two at the line.

After AND’s McGurk canned a jumper for her final two points of the night, Grasela dropped in one of two free throws, Lindahl scored off a steal, and Bolen drove in for a lay-up that had the hosts ahead 35-24 three minutes into the second half. The teams traded field goals, then Balzer, newly arrived on the floor, bagged a “three” from the left corner, raising the count to 40-26.

“Coach Retif told me to move my feet, communicate, and try to play with the intensity of the seniors,” the ninth-grader said. “The older girls have been great. If I make a mistake they always tell me I’ll get it next time. I know I can always rely on them to help me and encourage me.”

The score seesawed to 42-28 by the end of the third quarter, when Notre Dame had six team fouls and GA only three. Lindahl and Oeth continued to propel the Patriots, the former kicking off the final round with her second three-pointer of the night (the Pats had four altogether), and the latter extracting both points from a one-and-one at the foul line.

Notre Dame would only score one lay-up and two free throws in the last period as Germantown added another seven points to its advantage.

UPDATE: On Sunday GA raised its overall record to 16-2 with a 50-43 victory over Upper Dublin High School in the Blue Star Shootout at Cabrini College.