Behind Vargas, strong defense, Upper Dublin handles Plymouth Whitemarsh

WHITEMARSH >> Upper Dublin scored less than five seconds into the game against Plymouth Whitemarsh Friday night and led the rest of the way.

Jackie Vargas won the opening tip to Jess Polin, who found Dayna Balasa for an easy layup. After a turnover on the ensuing PW possession, Balasa drilled a three-pointer.

The Cardinals stayed out in front and rolled to a dominant 40-22 Suburban One League American Conference win at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School’s Gym West.

The defending state champions have been winning with defense for the last few seasons and Friday night’s victory was no different.

In the first half, the Cardinals (16-3, 11-1 SOL American) put on the pressure to keep PW from scoring. They forced 11 turnovers in the first 16 minutes and held the Colonials to 12 points at intermission.

It was a different story in the second half. Upper Dublin took its foot off the gas, sat back and didn’t force a single turnover.

“We came out early and the girls want to pressure them,” Upper Dublin coach Morgan Funsten said. “We had success last game pressuring them in the second half. That’s the plan we came up with. We got a little bit of a lead. I viewed us pressuring them as a chance to give them openings. In the half court I didn’t think we were giving them a lot of openings. I told the girls at halftime, ‘We may just get boring, but it’s going to be effective. We just have to trust it and just grind it out’ and I thought the girls did a good job of accepting it — a little reluctantly — and they played a great second half.”

Vargas was a big reason why the “boring” zone was so successful. She tallied seven blocks in the second half (eight in the game) and kept PW from establishing a presence in the paint.

“I’ve always been a blocker,” Vargas said. “It’s not anything new. (Funsten) tells me to keep it straight up and I do that. I don’t try to swat or make the block look really nice.”

“You’ve got to be good in there,” Funsten added. “(PW) attacks the basket really hard and if they get blocked they don’t care, they’re just going to come back at you again. It’s important to move your feet and stay straight up and Jackie’s about the best I’ve ever seen at being able to challenge without fouling.”

“Jackie Vargas is the answer to that one, two and three,” PW coach Dan Dougherty said of Upper Dublin’s defensive success. “She’s such a presence in the paint, she effects shots even when she’s not blocking them and they’re just so well-prepared. They’re very well-prepared, they’re well-disciplined. For the most part they don’t foul — they usually don’t foul on your shots — they are going to make you shoot over them. Morgan is a great coach. He has them well-prepared for everything that we do.”

Vargas led the Cardinals offensively with 17 points, adding seven rebounds and an assist. Sarah Eskew had nine points and Balasa added five.

Lainey Allen led the Colonials (16-4, 8-4) with six points. Anna McTamney added five and Kaitlyn Flanagan and Jordyn Thompson each had four.

Plymouth Whitemarsh made its best run early in the second half. The Colonials scored the first five points of the third quarter to cut a an eight-point halftime deficit to three, 20-17. That’s as close as they’d get.

“Defensive breakdowns.” Dougherty said of what went wrong. “I think sometimes the kids’ adrenaline gets going, they hear the crowd get into the game, they pull within three points and they don’t have the mental fortitude to re-focus — ‘OK we have to get a stop now. We have to get a stop, next possession we have to get a stop.’ They get a little too excited inside and they lose their discipline defensively or they lose their responsibilities and next thing you know 20-17 turns into 22, then 24, then 26. When you give that team the lead they take the air of out the ball.”

The Cardinals re-built the lead to multiple possessions and closed the game with a 20-5 run.

“It was a ‘grind it out in the second half’ and it got a little nerve-wracking there because they made the first couple baskets of the second half,” Funsten said, “but the girls stayed within themselves and trusted what we were doing.”