Upper Dublin offense struggles in loss to Neshaminy

ROYERSFORD >> For a few moments early in the fourth quarter, it seemed the crispness was back in the Upper Dublin offense, when the Cardinals needed it most.

Allison Chernow fired it out to a wide open Maggie Weglos, who buried a three to trim the Neshaminy lead to 36-28 with 6 minutes and 47 seconds left in this PIAA Class AAAA Second Round contest.
“The coaches just said straight to us, ‘it’s now or never,’” said Chernow, the Cardinals’ stellar 5-foot-8 senior guard. “I think we gave it everything we had in the second half. Unfortunately, we just dug ourselves too big a hole.”
Uncharacteristic miscues and 10-for-49 shooting were too much for the Cardinals to overcome in Tuesday night’s 53-35 loss to Neshaminy, as an outstanding season for Upper Dublin came to a finish in the state’s final 16.
“I think it was more us making mistakes on the defensive end — we just weren’t being as disciplined as we usually are,” Chernow said. “We gave (Neshaminy) open looks and they knocked them down.”
The Skins would shoot 50 percent from three-point range, hitting five of 10, but the Cardinals couldn’t get much going from outside.
Neshaminy built a 25-12 lead by the half, as the Skins limited Upper Dublin to just a pair of field goals — a rough 2-of-19 from the floor. The Cardinals had a push late in the third and early in the fourth but would connect on only 21 percent of their shots while the Skins were 16-of-32.
“You’re not gonna win a lot of games when those are the statistics,” Upper Dublin coach Morgan Funsten said. “Sometimes it doesn’t just come down to how bad you want it — you gotta make some shots.
“And a combination of some defensive breakdowns in the first half and not making shots, I thought really doomed us.”
Chernow would finish with nine points, seven assists and five rebounds, leading comeback hopes in the second half, but after Upper Dublin trimmed the margin to eight, the Skins would control the rest of the fourth and pull away.
“Whenever the season ends, it’s always gonna hurt,” Chernow said. “It’s tough the way it ended out here tonight, but to look where we are — the final 16 in the entire state, I was lucky to be a part of that.”
The Cardinals battled until the end without one of their stars, senior Ashley Barber, who was out the last two games with a concussion. Upper Dublin didn’t just meet expectations this year but instead exceeded them.
“I don’t know if you would have found anybody picking Upper Dublin to be in the final 16 in the state,” Funsten said. “Hats off to Neshaminy because they’ve made a great run too. We thought we matched up well with them and we thought we had some similar tendencies as teams.
“The season that Allison had as a four-year varsity player, I thought she just matured so much and was our go-to leader. I think we’re gonna look back on the season and be really satisfied with the accomplishments that we had.”