STATE COLLEGE – A breath of fresh air would be the best way to describe the 2009 PIAA girls basketball champions, as three of the four titlists won their first championships over the weekend at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center in State College.
Mt. Lebanon (Class AAAA), Archbishop Carroll (Class AAA) and Villa Maria (Class AA) all captured PIAA title for the first time, while Bishop Guilfoyle (Class A) took home its fifth crown and its second in three years.
CLASS AAAA: Mt. Lebanon completes perfect season
Mt. Lebanon’s resume included becoming just the second WPIAL girls basketball team to finish a season unbeaten and win a PIAA title when the Blue Devils knocked off heavily favored Cardinal O’Hara, which has all five starters going to NCAA Division I programs, 67-58 Friday night.
“It’s a numb feeling,” Mt. Lebanon coach Dori Oldaker said. “I don’t know when it’s going to hit me. We had a lot of naysayers who said we played a weak schedule. Hopefully, we proved them wrong. It doesn’t matter what they say. Nobody can take it away from us now.”
The Blue Devils (31-0) trailed 35-32 early in the third quarter when Cardinal O’Hara’s 6-foot-4 senior center Steph Holtzer, who is headed to Vanderbilt went down with an ankle injury that kept her out for the rest of the game.
With Holtzer on the bench, Mt. Lebanon went on a 22-9 run to take an 10-point lead, 54-44, with 3:09 left in the game.
“Every opponent wants the opposing team two be at 100 percent,” Oldaker said. “We thought we could still play with them and beat them with her in the game. But we do feel bad about her getting hurt in the game.”
But Cardinals O’Hara, which spent a portion of the season ranked as the nation’s top team by some publications and is still in the top 10 while having all five starters headed to NCAA Division I schools, fought back closing to within three, 59-56, with just under a minute to play. But Mt. Lebanon ended the game on an 8-2 run that included six points from the free-throw line to claim its first PIAA title.
“We gave up some three’s (down the stretch),” Oldaker said. “That’s the game. It’s March Madness, right?”
The victory came just a little more than a year after Mt. Lebanon lost the state championship game to Central Dauphin 56-49 on the same Bryce Jordan Center floor.
“We felt we left something behind last year,” Oldaker said. “We came back to get it this year. This feels great. It feels pretty awesome. It’s not for me. It’s for the team and how awesome it feels for them.”
Madison Cable’s double-double (19 points, 11 rebounds) led three Blue Devil players in double digits, as Emily Miller (21 points, seven rebounds) and Lauren Arbogast (14 points) also reached double figures. Jessica Babe set up the offense with 12 assists to go with four points and two steals.
Natasha Cloud paced Cardinal O’Hara with 20 points, Holtzer had 14 points, six rebounds and five blocked shots before going out with the injury. Alicia Manning added 10 points.
CLASS AAA: Archbishop Carroll too much for Lampeter-Strasburg
Archbishop Carroll, from the Philadelphia Catholic League, playing in its first PIAA title game in its first-year in the PIAA, ran right past Lampeter-Strasburg 68-45 Saturday night to win the Class AAA title.
The Patriots (30-1) pretty much had the championship wrapped up before halftime thanks to a 28-7 run in the half’s final 8:14 that gave them a 45-19 halftime lead.
Archbishop Carroll rode a 10 of 14 shooting performance in the first quarter to a 26-15 lead at the end of the quarter and then shot 7 of 13 in the second quarter including hitting its final five shots to outscore Lampeter-Strasburg 19-4 in the quarter.
“We just came out really strong,” Archbishop Carroll head coach Chuck Creighton said. “That wasn’t a fluke. We shoot that well all the time. When we get going, we can make shots like that.”
Eight different Patriots reached the scoreboard including three in double digits. Hollie Mershon and Erin Shields led the way with 13 points each while Kerri Shields added 12 points and six rebounds.
Katie Lynch led Lampeter-Strasburg, which shot just 36.2 percent for the game, with 14 points and seven rebounds, while Danielle Rittenhouse added 10.
CLASS AA: Villa Maria holds off York Catholic comeback
In the Class AA title game, Villa Maria Academy from Erie held off a furious second-half York Catholic comeback to claim a 56-51 over the three-time defending champion Irish Friday afternoon.
“It’s the most amazing feeling in the world,” Villa Maria head coach Scott Dibble said. “We’ve been here before and come up on the short end of the stick. We finally got over the hump. I couldn’t be happier for the school, the kids, my staff, the administration and the families. All the time and effort we put in year in and year out. To finally be the one to win is pretty special.”
Villa Maria (27-3) led by 18, 39-21, following an old-school 3-point play by McBride with 13:05 left in the game.
But York Catholic (26-7) stormed back ending the third quarter on a 10-0 run to get within eight, 39-31, going to the fourth quarter. The Irish run then went to 13-0 39 seconds into the final frame when Karli McFatridge hit a 3-pointet to close the gap to five, 39-34. York Catholic then got within three, 46-43, on two Brittany Hicks free throws with 2:41 to go, and the Irish then cut the deficit to 53-51 on a Rachel Forjan 3-pointer with 30 seconds left. McBride, though, his 3 of 4 free throws in the final 25 seconds, and York Catholic missed three shots in the final 17 seconds.
“It was just a mental thing,” McBride said about her team nearly losing the game. “We had some breakdowns. We just needed to calm down and play our game not theirs. We needed to play to our level of talent, take care of the ball and hit open shots. That’s what we did.”
McBride, a junior who is a Notre Dame recruit, tied for the game high with 20 points while adding nine rebounds, seven assists and two blocked shots. Kaylyn Maruca added 15 points and six rebounds.
Kady Schrann tied McBride for game-high honors with two points, while Hicks added 19 points, 12 rebounds, two blocked shots and two steals.
The victory avenged a 58-44 loss to York Catholic in the 2007 PIAA Class AA title game for the Victors.
CLASS A: Bishop Guilfoyle too much for Nativity BVM
In a game that featured two of the top programs in the state over the two and a half decades, Bishop Guilfoyle jumped out to a 19-5 lead at the end of the first quarter and never looked back in getting a 49-27 win over Nativity BVM Saturday afternoon.
“There’s nothing like winning a state title,” Bishop Guilfoyle head coach Mark Moschella said. “I’ve been on both ends. There aren’t too many kids who get the opportunity to walk through these doors with a gym bag. So (Nativity) has to be awfully proud of their program.”
Bishop Guilfoyle (30-1) got 22 points, 12 rebounds, five steals and three blocked shots from junior 1,000-point scorer Alli Williams, who shot 8 of 12 from the floor.
“She’s a warrior,” Moschella said. She’ the kid who’s the leader. Her experience on the floor, I think, settled our kids down early and got us into the routine we wanted to be in.”
Kaleigh Floyd added 11 points and Rachel Rea eight for the Marauders, who shot 50 percent (18 of 36 for the game).
Nativity BVM (27-4) shot just 10 of 50 (20 percent) from the field in the game while being held to its lowest points total on the season. Kiely Chaklos led Nativity with eight points, while Sasha Birosik added seven points, seven rebounds, three steals and two assists.
Bishop Guilfoyle and Nativity BVM have combined to win nine PIAA titles (7 in Class A; 2 in Class AA), including this year, since 1984 while appearing in 16 PIAA title games (13 Class A, 3 Class AA). It is Bishop Guilfoyle’s second title in the last three years (it also won in 2007) and its fifth all-time (three in Class A, two in Class AA). It was also the second time the schools have met in the title game, as Nativity BVM, which has won four PIAA Class A titles since 1990, beat BG in the title game in 1999.
The game featured a light-hearted moment for Bishop Guilfoyle in the second half when the Marauders Tiffany Seasoltz got turned around and scored a basket for Nativity BVM in the third quarter. Seasoltz told the Altoona Mirror’s Phil Cmor that she heard the officials say purple, Bishop Guilfoyle’s uniform color, and thought the play called was “purple” and inbound play underneath the hoop. Seasoltz ran the play to perfection, unfortunately into the wrong basket.
