In the end, two area girls’ basketball teams from the area with 4-1 records proved to be very evenly matched, although their encounter didn’t start out that way.

The visiting Tigers of Germantown Friends School dominated the early action in last Tuesday’s non-league contest, and were leading 18-4 near the end of the first quarter. The host Blue Devils of Springside Chestnut Hill Academy closed the gap in the middle of the second quarter, but the half ended with the Tigers once again enjoying a comfortable double-digit lead at 34-20.

SCH made up half of that deficit by the end of the third quarter (when the tally was 43-36), and with less than two minutes remaining in the game the Blue Devils trailed the Tigers by just a single point, 51-50. No more points were scored during the frantic final moments, and GFS departed with a one-point win and a 5-1 record.

The only other loss for Springside (4-2) had come at the hands of another Friends Schools League team, Shipley School. Aside from SCH, Germantown Friends defeated another Inter-Ac League member, Penn Charter, by a score of 48-33. The Tigers have lost only to the Hill School, 38-36, and Penn Charter had actually beaten Hill earlier, 48-46.

At SCH last Tuesday, sophomore London Rothmiller of GFS scored the first basket on a baseline shot, and two Blue Devil turnovers led to two more Tiger field goals before the home team got on the board with a layup off a steal by sophomore Mimi Gallagher. A total of six GFS players scored during the first quarter, with three of them netting three-pointers. Two of the buckets from the three-point loop came from freshman Laila McNeal.

Springside Chestnut Hill, which got another field goal from Gallagher, trailed 18-4 before the first period ended with a pair of free throws from senior Pia Swamy, making it 18-6.

SCH starting guard Classie Moses, only an eighth-grader, went to work as the second quarter got underway. With a layup to start the quarter and a three-pointer from the right wing and a score off a steal later on, she led a Blue Devils rally. Swamy added a midrange jumper and two free throws, and with 4:58 left in the first half, GFS called a timeout with its lead now down to five points, 22-17.

The sideline huddle appeared productive for the Tigers, who began to respond to the SCH threat with sophomore JoJo Lintulahti’s trey from the left flank. This touched off a run of a dozen consecutive points for the visitors.

The Devils got a free throw from freshman Lielle Freund and a score off a rebound from Gallagher at the end of the half, but still trailed by 14 points at the intermission. McNeal had a dozen points in the book, and Lintulahti had eight.

In the third quarter, Springside rallied to outscore GFS 16-9, getting three-pointers from Gallagher and junior Kendall Schnee, and contributions from four other players.

Less than three minutes into the fourth stanza, three-pointers by Lintulahti and eighth-grader Melanie Budd had the Tigers up by eight points (49-41), but they would only score two points the rest of the way. A breakaway layup by Schnee and a three-point basket by Moses followed; then the Tigers got two points back on a baseline drive by McNeal, for a 51-46 tally.

The Blue Devils’ Swamy was fouled and made both of her free throws, and at the other end the 30-second clock ran out without the Tigers getting off a shot. A drive to the hoop by Springside’s Moses put the 51-50 final score on the board with 1:42 remaining in regulation. GFS called time out with 1:33 to go.

The Tigers then turned the ball over in the backcourt, but Lintulahti stole it back. On a tie-up, SCH got possession back with 22 seconds left. The Devils missed two shots, and on the second the ball was rebounded by the visitors’ Emmie Day (a senior).

After an errant Germantown Friends shot at the far end of the court, the Devils called time out, but there was only enough time for a long, desperate heave at the basket that missed the mark. The Tigers had survived.

McNeal and Lintulahti led the winners with 17 and 13 points respectively. Sophomore Samantha Sims-Pettiford added eight points and Budd scored seven, and the Tigers got two points apiece from Day, Rothmiller and senior Sarah Goldberg.

Reaching double digits for SCH were Moses (14 points), Swamy (12), and Gallagher (11). Schnee produced eight points, Freund scored three, and senior Flo Ajunwa contributed two points. Ajunwa recently made the decision to continue her basketball career at Susquehanna University.