Upper Dublin leans on defense, Vargas to top Plymouth Whitemarsh

UPPER DUBLIN >> The finish said otherwise, but Jackie Vargas admitted she wasn’t ready for the start of Tuesday’s game.

Upper Dublin’s junior center wasn’t alone, as the rest of her Cardinals girls’ basketball teammates stumbled out of the gates against visiting Plymouth Whitemarsh. Instead of lingering in it, the Cardinals let their defense and by extension Vargas turn things around.

Vargas put a large mark on the game from both ends of the floor and the Cardinals defense held Plymouth Whitemarsh to a single-digit second half point total in a 43-22 win Tuesday night.

“I think it shows us we can come out and play if we’re ready,” Vargas said. “In the beginning, we weren’t ready and I wasn’t ready either, I let up too many baskets. It shows us we can always play hard, even if we’re not making shots, you can always focus on something else.”

Vargas posted an impressive line of 20 points, 13 rebounds and 12 blocks, scoring nine of her 20 in the fourth quarter while showing her ability to attack off the dribble.

There’s an undeniable familiarity when the two teams play and both sides were very ready for the other team’s offensive plays, but the series has belonged to the Colonials of late. PW had won four straight over Upper Dublin going into Tuesday and none of the five starters for Upper Dublin could claim a win over the Colonials.

Even with a pretty fresh cast this season, PW tried to make things as tough as possible. Freshman Jordyn Thomas did a solid job defensively against Vargas early on, holding the UD junior to 4-of-11 shooting in the first half.

While Upper Dublin was slow to start, they managed to frustrate PW offensively all night.

“As much as we can call out what their plays are, they can call out what our plays are and their players were able to handle it and score off of it and our kids were not able to,” PW coach Dan Dougherty said. “At one timeout in the second half, we told them this is what’s coming and this what you have to do and our kids just struggled tonight.”

The Colonials wanted to feed their interior duo of Thomas and Lainey Allen, but Vargas proved a roadblock down low. She totaled six of her nine blocks in the first half and played almost like a rover defensively.

Vargas said she knew a couple of the PW players weren’t threats to shoot from outside, so she didn’t have to play up on them, leaving her some room to either double in the post or come over as a helper.

“I felt like it was a mix of guarding either half-way or behind, mostly I guarded from behind and we focused on getting it left shoulder so if they did throw it up, it was a harder pass,” Vargas said. “It’s usually harder for most people to go left, so that was the main thing, trying to force it left. We knew some of them wouldn’t shoot the three, so I could help down.”

Prior to the fourth quarter, PW only attempted three 3-point shots, which was not part of their game plan. While their one make, a trey by Kate Flanagan in the second quarter, gave them a lead, passing up looks only made Upper Dublin’s job easier.

“We talk about taking in-rhythm threes and there were multiple, open in rhythm threes and we weren’t taking it,” Dougherty said. “Kids get their shot blocked, they start to get discouraged and it’s something we work on at practice, how to attack a shot-blocker and they’re struggling a bit to take the drills we do and transitioning them to big games.”

The Colonials held a 15-13 lead in the second quarter before a late surge sent Upper Dublin into the half up a basket and seemingly out of their first-half haze. Kara Grebe found Vargas for the tying layup, then Sarah Eskew made a terrific hustle play to keep a deflected pass in bounds and turned it into a long pass to Anajae Smith for the go-ahead hoop.

During the break, the Cardinals players wanted to try something and pleaded their case to coach Morgan Funsten. He was on board with the idea and when the Cardinals returned for the second half, they came out pressuring.

UD, which played in a zone during halfcourt defense, got after PW the length of the court even after guard Jess Polin picked up her third foul with 6:45 left in the third quarter. Polin sat until the fourth quarter and UD, normally a good outside shooting team, hit just 1-of- 9 from deep.

“The end of the second quarter was extremely important for us to get to 17-15 while not feeling great about ourselves, we were a step slow in the first half,” Funsten said. “Credit to the players, they said to me ‘let’s pressure.’ They were comfortable communicating that to me then coming out and speeding (PW) up for some time and turning them over.”

Upper Dublin, after giving up 11 points in the first quarter, gave up just 11 points over the next three quarters combined. The Cardinals held PW to just seven second half points while continuing to push their lead out.

Vargas had the play of the third quarter, pulling down a rebound off a PW miss and dribbling end-to-end for a layup that put the Cardinals up by 10 points. While the junior did it with scoring on Tuesday, Funsten felt Vargas was just continuing off the stellar game she had played against defending Delaware state champion Conrad on Sunday night.

In that game, Vargas had 17 rebounds and five late assists for easy layup, so she just kept it rolling against PW. On Tuesday, she did with her off-the-bounce game, reading that PW was playing her man-to-man and taking the ball to the rim.

“If I saw I could get around the girl quickly enough, I would go,” Vargas said. “I was just reading it and seeing what they were giving me. Even if it’s just a little bit of space, you can always try to find a way to get around it.

“I’ve been working a lot on my ball-handling both over the summer and one-on-ones, so obviously I think it’s showing.”

A Dayna Balasa 3-pointer put UD up 32-19, then Vargas scored nine of the next 11 points to ice the game. She drew two shooting fouls on drives, converted on a three-point play and scored off another drive.

Still in sole possession of first place in the SOL American, the Cardinals face Wissahickon on Friday, then challenge Imhotep Charter on Sunday as part of the Play-By-Play Classic event at Jefferson University.

“I thought we turned a corner on Sunday, I felt our preparation for that game was the best it had been all year and it was something we needed to improve on,” Funsten said. “At times this year, we’ve relied on our talent opposed to preparing so the girls took my challenge personal and prepared for Sunday. We did not prepare as well tonight, but they did a great job of responding to adversity in the second half.”

UPPER DUBLIN 11 6 11 15 – 43
PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 11 4 4 3 – 22
UD: Jackie Vargas 7 6-7 20, Jess Polin 1 0-0 2, Kara Grebe 3 1-2 7, Sarah Eskew 1 0-0 2, Dayna Balasa 2 0-0 5, Anajae Smith 2 1-1 5, Bliss Brenner 0 2-2 2. Nonscoring: Meg Barbera. Totals: 16 10-12 43.
PW: Kate Flanagan 3 1-2 8, Anna McTamney 0 2-2 2, Lainey Allen 2 2-2 6, Jordyn Thomas 2 0-2 4, Sydney Kesselman 1 0-0 2. Nonscoring: Gabby Cooper, Ally Zolty, LB McGrorty. Totals: 8 5-12 22.
3-pointers: UD – Balasa; PW – Flanagan.