Tigers senior Ajai DeBose gets off a baseline shot against Bodine's Keyanah Price in the GFS Community Tournament championship game. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Appearing in front of their home fans last weekend on the court in Scattergood Gym, the girls of Germantown Friends emerged as the 2016 champions of the school's long-running Germantown Community Tournament.

The Tigers rolled past Girard College in a 43-7 semifinal on Friday evening, then staved off a late rally by the Bodine High School for International Affairs on Saturday afternoon, winning the tourney final by a score of 35-25. Jessica Moore, a forward still only in eighth grade, registered a team-high 12 points for GFS in the title bout, and eight points apiece were provided by guards Lilly Dupuis (a senior) and Corin Grady (a junior) as the Tigers evened up their season record at 2-2.

Under new head coach Mike Lintulahti, the team is regrouping following significant graduation losses, and among the fresh faces in this year's line-up is a second eighth-grader, guard Desiree Norwood.

"As a group, we're encountering a lot of things on the floor together for the first time, situations we haven't yet been able to simulate in practice," Lintulahti said after Saturday's victory. "I'm pleased with the way the team members are really starting to trust one another, celebrate each other's success, and learn the importance of communicating."

The Community Tournament began back in 1989, bringing together teams from the area around GFS and benefitting an annual summer program held on campus, the Germantown Community Basketball and Summer Education Camp.

Recently, tourney organizers have had to go a little farther afield to make up a girls' bracket for the event, since School House Lane neighbor Penn Charter hasn't entered the tournament for a number of years now, and Germantown High School closed in 2013.

Since 1993, the closing ceremony has included the presentation of the tournament's Community Service Award, recognizing an individual who has provided outstanding service to the community of Germantown. This year's recipient was Eric Worley, a Central High School graduate who went on to play basketball for West Chester University. Worley is one of the founders and driving forces behind Philly Triple Threat, which offers boys and girls youth basketball teams and is affiliated with the AAU.

But as GFS Athletic Director Katie Bergstrom Mark emphasized, Triple Threat does a lot more than that, living up to its mission statement of being "committed to serving youth in and around the Philadelphia area in three distinct arenas; Education, Athletics, and Life."

In the opening game of the 2016 gathering at Germantown Friends, the girls of Bodine started their season by steadily outscoring Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice in each quarter.

Winning 47-28 with a 31-point effort from junior forward Keyanah Price, the Ambassadors became the first team to make the tourney finals.

Later, GFS took the court against the Lady Cavaliers of Girard, who were playing in their season opener.

The Tigers entered that contest coming off of losses to a pair of teams from Princeton, N.J., Hun School and Stuart Country Day.

It was quite a different story against Girard as GFS fired up the crowd at its home opener by romping to leads of 12-3 at the quarter 28-3 at halftime. The Tigers tacked on another 11 in the third period before settling for a 4-4 draw in the fourth.

Moore outscored the entire Girard team with her game-high 12 points, and junior guard Corin Grady matched the Cavaliers' total with her seven-point showing. GFS marked down six points for senior guard Lilly Dupuis, five for junior guard Maya Keren, and four apiece for freshman Tsega Afessa and eighth-grader Norwood.

Three points from senior guard Ajai DeBose and two from sophomore guard Gigi Guida rounded out the Tigers' total, while Girard was paced by a three-point performance from Siani Clark-Hartley.

Girard went on to face the Parkway Northwest Hoyas in the tournament consolation game early on Saturday afternoon. Parkway had received 14 points from senior guard Talaythia Hill in a losing cause in the Friday semifinal against Bodine. Hill, who works at popular Chestnut Hill area hangout Bruno's Restaurant, rang up 39 on Saturday to lead the Hoyas past Girard, 48-21.

Later that afternoon, the finals got underway with almost half-a-period of ineffective offensive efforts by both squads. The full-featured new scoreboard in Scattergood finally got moving when the young Moore subbed in and scored on a drive for the Tigers with three minutes and 51 seconds elapsed. Then Bodine sandwiched two baseline buckets by Price around a three-pointer by Canya Harp to lead 7-2 after the first round.

Through the first four minutes of the second quarter Moore remained the only scorer for GFS, depositing two more field goals. The Tigers had dialed up their defensive game, though, and would limit the Ambassadors to just a pair of free throws by Harp throughout the period.

With a little over three minutes left, Germantown's Dupuis got going from the outside. She hit back-to-back three-pointers from opposite sides of the floor and when the interlude arrived the hosts were ahead, 12-9.

Lintulahti observed, "Lilly Dupuis hit some big shots that sort of took the lid off the basket for us, and loosened us up and opened up the floor a little bit. I thought their defensive pressure disrupted us early in the game."

The Tiger ballhandlers are coping with more of that pressure than they'd been used to in the past since the graduation of four-year starting point guard and 1000-point scorer Lizzie Becker, who is now playing at Dickinson College.

"Those are huge shoes to fill," said Lintulahti, who was already working at GFS last year and saw Becker play. "She was someone that everyone else looked to for leadership, toughness, dealing with pressure and, obviously, putting the ball in the basket at key times. The younger players we have now are now on a journey to find those things within themselves."

As his Tigers began scoring more consistently in the second quarter, the rookie coach was also pleased with their increased vigor when playing defense.

"We talk about not letting the offensive end of the court dictate our energy," he revealed. "Strong defense will spark the offense."

Dupuis and Moore had provided all of the points for Germantown Friends in the first half, but when play resumed after the break, Grady stepped up to score six of her eight second-half points during the third stanza. Moore continued to contribute, netting two more field goals, and GFS kept up the solid defense it had displayed in the second period, allowing just four points for the visitors.

Moore's classmate, Norwood, chipped in two points, and when Debose hit a free throw in the final 30 seconds, GFS was able to take a 25-13 lead into the fourth quarter.

Like GFS, Bodine lost a major offensive threat from a year ago (Tiana Garvin), and with no seniors on the team at all this season, the Ambassadors are relatively inexperienced. They do have some quickness and shooting ability, and this allowed them to make a run at the Tigers in the closing stages of the game.

More than five minutes in, the hosts had actually nudged their lead up to 14 points at 29-15 thanks to Norwood and Grady. In addition, Bodine had lost the services of Price, who picked up her fourth and fifth personal fouls in the initial three-and-a-half minutes.

The Ambassadors based their late comeback attempt on three three-point field goals by Harp, but fortunately for GFS, the Bodine guard only made one of five free throws she was awarded during this stretch. This allowed the tourney hosts to remain in the lead going into the final minute, 29-25.

Junior guard Corin Grady eyes up a three-pointer for Germantown Friends. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

Germantown then received a boon from Bodine, who had a player grab a loose ball at the defensive end and, in her excitement, shoot it up and into the GFS basket to make it 31-25.

Asked how he instructed his players to brace themselves against the late onslaught by the visitors, Lintulahti recounted, "We knew where the shots were coming from, so we wanted to squeeze out on number three, although we didn't always do a great job there. We wanted to be poised when we had the ball, and we also wanted to be aware of the game situation right at the end. We were in the bonus, so we didn't need to take any more jump shots; it was okay to get fouled and go to the line."

That's how the Tigers sealed their victory in the last 30 seconds, as first Dupuis and then Moore went two-for-two at the charity stripe to spread the gap to double digits for the final buzzer.

The Tigers had gotten back to 2-2 in the young season, an encouraging achievement after they'd suffered setbacks in their first two outings.

However, Lintulahti knows that some tough competition lies ahead within the Friends Schools League, with Abington Friends having already knocked off two traditionally strong Inter-Ac League teams, Episcopal Academy and Notre Dame.

"There's still a lot of feeling things out with our team right now," the GFS mentor said. "The main things we're working on are reducing our errors and improving our decision making."