Defense fuels Wood past O’Hara, back to PCL title game

PHILADELPHIA >> There was only one kind of game that Archbishop Wood wanted to play against Cardinal O’Hara Tuesday night.
The Vikings felt if they got into an up-tempo offensive track meet, it wouldn’t go their way and it wouldn’t take long to do that. So, the plan was to rely on the patented Wood way, win it with defense and grind things out.
Unlike the first meeting between the teams, Wood did exactly what it wanted to. The payoff was a 47-34 win over O’Hara and a trip to the Palestra for the PCL title game.
“We’re more of an offensive team than defensive this year, a lot of our games this year have been in the 40s or around there,” Wood coach Mike McDonald said. “The last time we played them, they’ve held the ball, not holding it to not score, but because they’re patient in their offense so we knew it was going to be limited possessions.”
The first quarter was exactly like McDonald predicited with both teams playing excellent defense and not giving up many possessions. At one point, Wood had the ball for nearly 90 seconds, unable to break down the Lions for a shot. But that was also a step in the right direction.
In the first meeting, Wood played too selfishly on offense, with players looking for their own shots more than the right shots and as a result, they lost to fall to 5-6. But the Vikings haven’t lost since, with Tuesday being their 14th straight win and they’ve done it with stout defense and balanced offense.
“We weren’t the same team when we played them in January,” Wood senior forward Bailey Greenberg said. “We’re a much different team, we’re more experienced, we’re more confident and we play together so much more now.”
Tuesday, Wood had seven players score and six of them dropped at least five points. But the effort did start on defense, with senior guard Claire Bassetti putting in a tremendous shift on talented O’Hara junior Kenzie Gardler. Greenberg held Mary Sheehan in check with gritty defender Cassie Sebold filling in the cracks and spaces.
Sophomore Katie May, tasked with guarding O’Hara’s potent junior scorer Hannah Nihill, also had a strong showing and sparked a key offensive surge shortly after picking up her third foul in the second quarter. Instead of sitting the 6-foot-2 forward to guard against a fourth foul , McDonald trusted May and she rewarded it by first hitting a 3-pointer then assisting a Bassetti trey as part of a 9-0 run that put Wood up for good.
“I thought we really needed her on the floor,” McDonald said. “She was doing a really good job defensively. I trust her with three fouls, most of the time she’s going straight up anyway. She’s really smart about the way she plays defense.”
Wood took a 15-12 lead into the break the added on to it by hitting three 3-pointers in the third quarter while holding O’Hara to just six points. After holding Gardler to 0-of-3 shooting in the first half, Bassetti kept up her defense and her cover didn’t take a shot in the third.
“The goal was to not give her shots that she would want,” Bassetti said. “I was told to stay more home and if she was going to penetrate, to give help defense but otherwise make sure she wasn’t getting those shots.”
Wood’s airtight defending didn’t allow O’Hara many of the type of shots it wanted, but the Vikings knew that Nihill, Gardler and Mary Sheehan wouldn’t stay quiet all game. They just wanted to make sure the damage was as limited as possible.
That meant a concerted effort on the glass and Wood brought it there, with Greenberg yanking down 10 misses, Katie May six and six clutch rebounds from junior guard Cassie Sebold. Even with all that, when Nihill sank a triple to open the fourth quarter, Wood’s lead was just six at 27-21.
“We knew that we could not give them second shots,” Sebold said. “If they missed the first, they were going to make the second, that’s just the kind of team they are. They would go after rebounds and we would keep boxing them out and not give them second chance opportunities.”
With 5:26 to go, Wood got into the single bonus, and after struggling at the line against Archbishop Ryan in the quarterfinals, icing the game at the stripe was not automatic. But unlike the Ryan game, Wood’s FT shooting was better on Tuesday.
Sebold scored all seven of her points at the line and all in the fourth quarter. As a team, Wood went 14-of-25 at the line in the fourth, not perfect, but good enough.
“Shannon May always tells me, before you shoot it, tell yourself you’re going to make it,” Sebold said. “If you don’t think you’re going to make it then it’s not going to go in.”
“We’re basketball players, we know how to make foul shots,” Bassetti said. “It’s all about keeping in your mind that we all can make foul shots. We got over that hump a little more, we still missed some, it can always be better, but it we mentally got better.”
O’Hara got it down to eight with 1:41 left when Sheehan drilled a 3 off a Nihill kick-out but Wood scored the next five, all at the foul line, to put itself up 13 with 38 seconds left.
Wood will face Neumann-Goretti for the PCL title, a rematch of last year’s title game, at the Palestra on Feb. 22 at 6:45 p.m. After starting the year 5-6, it’s been a special turnaround for the Vikings.
“We’ve felt that way since we played Ursuline (Academy on Jan. 30),” Greenberg said. “They beat O’Hara so we knew that obviously they were going to be very good. We came out and we played so well that game, we were shocked. Ever since then, I think that we’ve been playing so well as a team.”
Cardinal O’Hara 5 7 4 18 – 34
Archbishop Wood 4 11 12 20 – 47
Cardinal O’Hara: Lauren Leicht 1 0-0 2, Mary Sheehan 4 0-1 10, Kenzie Gardler 2 1-2 6, Hannah Nihill 3 2-4 10, Maura Hendrixson 1 2-2 4, Molly Paolino 0 2-4 2. Nonscoring: Hoy, Denoncour. Totals: 11 7-13 34
Archbishop Wood: Cassie Sebold 0 7-10 7, Kate Connolly 3 0-0 7, Bailey Greenberg 4 2-4 10, Katie May 2 0-0 5, Claire Bassetti 3 3-6 11, Shannon May 0 5-9 5, Meg Neher 1 0-0 2. Nonscoring: K Brown. Totals: 13 17-29 47
3-pointers: O’Hara – Sheehan 2, Gardler 1, Nihill 2; Wood – Connolly 1, K May 1, Bassetti 2