By Joseph Santoliquito
Special to MaxPreps.com
Every year was the same ending. The Cardinal O’Hara girls basketball team, one of the most prominent programs in the Philadelphia area, finished each season with the Philadelphia Catholic League championship game.
That was it. That was all that was on their minds. Nothing more. Though there was always speculation as to what more the Lions could do—if only O’Hara were in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) and were able to play for the state championship.
That’s the difference this season, since the Philadelphia Catholic League officially became members of the PIAA. The Lions think they could make history this spring, becoming the first Philadelphia Catholic League (PCL) team to win a state title (West Catholic and Archbishop Wood failed during football season).
Perhaps no Catholic League team has a better chance to write history than the Lions. O’Hara, the defending league champion and winners of three of the last four PCL titles, enters the postseason 21-1 and nationally ranked by MaxPreps.com.
O’Hara possesses a team with all five starters heading to Division I programs, headed by Vanderbilt-bound center Stephanie Holzer, Maryland-bound junior shut-down guard Natasha Cloud and seniors Danielle Callahan (LaSalle), Alicia Manning (Lafayette) and Alysha Womack (Monmouth).
But it’s also a team on a very serious mission, to thwart every Class AAAA (large school) team in the state that feels that they can end O’Hara’s season.
“We definitely know we have a target on our backs,” said Holzer, who is averaging 20 points and 14 rebounds a game. “Being from the Catholic League, being Cardinal O’Hara, we’ll be facing the pressure of every team in the state coming after us. But I think it’s something we can deal with. That’s because the pressure comes mostly from ourselves.
“We want to be the first Catholic League team to win a state title. We know the history. We know we never had the chance like this before. But because I think we have a special team, a talented team, it would be very disappointing not to win both the Catholic League championship and the state championship.”
Another good reason why the Lions could go deep into the postseason is their coach, Linus McGinty, perhaps one of the most underappreciated high school basketball coaches in Pennsylvania. McGinty, who is in his 15th season at O’Hara, directed the Lions in winning eight Catholic League championships in 14 years. He’s won over 600 career games.
And he doesn’t like thinking too far ahead.
“This will be a new experience and the kids are excited about it,” McGinty said. “But we have to take what’s ahead of us first, and that’s winning the league playoffs. It’s why I’m taking the same approach as I always have. Plus, we have great seniors, who provide great leadership and a strong work ethic. We’ve played well all year, and we have a very focused group. Our goal is to control what we can, we can’t control who we may have to face.”
One team the Lions wouldn’t mind seeing again is Archbishop Wood, which put the only loss on O’Hara’s record, in a 53-41 setback on Jan. 9. The Lions have since gone on a 10-game winning streak, averaging 58.7 points a game, while giving up just 35.4 points a game over that span.
“Winning states is something we can do,” said Cloud, a 5-10 defensive specialist who committed to Maryland in early-December. “This is a special team. We won’t let each other down. No one could stop us—as a team.”
Erasing the Wood loss is first.
“That loss to Wood is still on our minds,” Holzer said. “But that loss may have actually helped us. We needed that loss to refocus ourselves. We’d love to face them again. We just have a fire and an energy. We know what’s at stake.”
Joseph Santoliquito covers high school sports for the Philadelphia Daily News.
