Upper Merion turns to its D to oust Penncrest

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MIDDLETOWN >> Jordan Wilson takes all of one word to summarize the conversation at halftime in the Upper Merion locker room Tuesday night.

“Defense,” the senior forward said resolutely.

The defensive end was the facet of the game that produced the two most impressive — and ultimately decisive — statistics of the Vikings’ District 1 Class 5A playback semifinal with Penncrest: Nine turnovers caused in the third quarter, and two Penncrest points on the board.

The stinginess propelled No. 7 seed Upper Merion to a 42-39 come-from-behind win, claiming the program’s first state playoff berth in recent memory.

And it all started with a defense that resolved to stiffen after entering halftime facing a 22-17 deficit.

“We wanted to pick up our defense in order to speed up the game, not put them to the line and just get our offense going,” Wilson said. “Defense is really what we’re good at.”

It’s tough to argue with Wilson, whose team created 19 turnovers in bringing an end to the season for the sixth-seeded Lions (15-10). Penncrest was outscored 11-2 in the third quarter and forced to wait until the 4:41 mark of the fourth for its first field goal after halftime.

Early on, Penncrest found holes aplenty in the Upper Merion’s 2-3 zone. Kylie Chelo exploited the short baseline to score six of her eight points in the first half, and Grace Harding operated near the free-throw line to tally six points in the first half. Kat Mullaney orchestrated the offense with four assists in the first 16 minutes as Penncrest dished eight helpers on 10 made baskets.

“That’s how we roll, we usually get things going fast and push it,” Chelo said. “Our offense usually flows like that. But in the second half, we didn’t look the same. That’s not how we play. The first half was how we usually are.”

But all of that dried up, as the mistakes piled ever higher in the face of a compact Vikings defense that smartly clogged passing lanes and forced Penncrest into mistakes.

“We were really trying to keep it packed in so that (Harding) and (Megan Arndt) wouldn’t seal us,” Wilson said. “So that was really our game plan from the jump.”

“They started pressing us and I think it was getting in our heads more,” Chelo said. “But we usually can beat the press. We were just off today, and we just couldn’t adapt to it right away. … We were just all getting really crazy with the ball. We needed to calm down, but we couldn’t.”

Penncrest led by as many as eight points in the first half, when Harding took a feed from Chelo with eight seconds left to put Penncrest up 22-14, but a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Upper Merion’s Maddie Harvey trimmed the spread to five.

In the third, Wilson took over, attacking off the bounce. She scored 13 of her game-high 18 points after the break, getting to the basket at will and nearly outscoring Penncrest (17 second-half points) by herself.

“I really just wanted to pick my team up,” Wilson said. “I wanted to fuel my game into them.”

Her spark led to a 13-0 run bridging the third and fourth quarters that left Upper Merion up 32-24. From there, the Vikings were content to trade baskets, and the margin was never closer than four until Harding’s bucket with less than five seconds left made the final margin a one-possession spread. Upper Merion even survived a 9-for-19 evening at the free-throw line, including 6-for-14 in the fourth.

Harding led Penncrest with 16 points in the last game of her career, plus four rebounds and four steals. Chelo scored eight points and Arndt added seven, but it took a combined 6-for-23 shooting effort to get there. Mullaney and Annalee Doyle each hit a 3-pointer in the first half but were otherwise muted.

Harvey finished with eight points for Upper Merion, while Amya Anthony paired four points with four assists and five steals. The Vikings move on to a seeding game with Springfield for fifth in District 1 before advancing to a momentous states date.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Wilson said. “We haven’t been here in I don’t know how long. So we’re looking forward to the next couple of games.”

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Matthew De George

Matthew De George
Matthew De George is the Asst. Sports Editor and the lead Union writer for The Daily Times.

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