North Penn up to challenge, thwarts Upper Dublin’s comeback attempt

Both Upper Dublin and North Penn entered Saturday’s contest on significant winning streaks. The Cardinals, winners of 12 straight, squared off with the Maidens, winners of eight consecutive.
However, the level of opponents that North Penn has been facing have been a cut above that of the Cardinals.
“The caliber of teams that we’ve played over our 12-game winning streak doesn’t match what North Penn’s been doing,” Upper Dublin coach Morgan Funsten said. “That may have been a reason for our slow start today. They’re used to playing top, top, top level teams, they’re league is loaded so there’s an adjustment period made and no matter how much we try to prepare for what they do you can’t totally prepare for it until you actually face it.”
It took Upper Dublin an entire quarter and some to adjust to the level of play the Maidens were playing at. The slow start coupled with some struggles down the stretch resulted in a 42-35 loss for Upper Dublin.
“The end of the first quarter in the second quarter they went up 15-3 and it looked like it wasn’t even going to be an interesting game,” Funsten said. “They’re so good, so talented, they play really good defense and the energy that we need to expend to get back to 31-31 (was significant).”
North Penn put on a clinic on ball movement, dumping the ball to its forwards, working the ball in and out, passing it around the perimeter and hitting the skip pass when necessary. The Maidens had points though out the game where it couldn’t get some shots to drop but the shot selection was never the issue.
“We got our looks our shooting percentage just wasn’t that great,” North Penn coach Maggie DeMarteleire said. “I was proud of (the kids, Upper Dublin) fought and battled and came back and tied it up and then we were able to gather ourselves and regroup and just raise our level again.”
The x-factor in the game was North Penn’s Irisa Ye. The senior netted six of her 12 points in the fourth quarter as played locked down defense on Upper Dublin’s top guard Allison Chernow. Ye and the rest of the Maidens limited Chernow to only seven points.
“When they came back and tied it (in the fourth quarter) I though Irisa really set the tone on defense and really went after Chernow,” DeMarteleire said. “I thought Irisa did a great job.”
North Penn was also able to bother sharp shooter Josie Barrett. Barrett made three second half three–pointers but also launched a couple from a distance Steph Curry would have thought twice about as Maidens left limited options for Barrett or any Cardinal ball handler.
Upper Dublin will look for a faster start as it faces another quality opponent in Germantown Academy on Sunday afternoon.