Jenkintown turns up defense in BAL semifinal win over New Hope-Solebury

JENKINTOWN >> The Jenkintown girls basketball team punched its ticket to the Bicentennial Athletic League championship game with a 40-25 win over New Hope-Solebury in the semifinals Thursday night at Jenkintown High School.

The defending league champion Drakes turned the game around in the second quarter and they did it with their defense, forcing 10 turnovers in the eight-minute frame.

“We just turned it up,” Jenkintown coach Jim Romano said. “These girls have been playing a while together. It’s just getting a feel for the game and we press the whole game — that’s what we do.”

Jenkintown, which trailed by one after the first, opened the second on a 6-0 run. They won the quarter, 12-4, to take a 17-10 lead into the lockerroom. Carly Mulvaney had five in the quarter, Mia Kolb four and Natalie Kolb three.

The lead remained around seven points through much of the third quarter before the Lions began trimming it down. They trailed by four, 22-18, with possession and less than 10 seconds left.

Mia Kolb swung the momentum, stealing a pass and taking it end-to-end for a layup as time expired to get the lead back to six, 24-18, heading to the fourth.

New Hope’s Kate Dougherty scored a quick basket, getting the Lions deficit back to four, 24-20, but that’s as close as they’d get.

Molly Walsh scored through contact with 5:20 left in the game and converted the free throw to get the lead to seven. Lauren Brockwell hit a long two-point jumper, Mia Kolb went 2-for-2 from the free-throw line and Natalie Kolb did the same to cap a 9-0 run and give the Drakes a 33-20 edge with 2:16 remaining.

“We just had to pick up our defense,” Mia Kolb said of the game-closing run. “We pressured the ball a lot more, double-teamed, tried to get the ball on offense as many times as we could.”

“Mia and Nat have been through it,” Romano said. “Carly, Molly (Smith) have been through it last year. They understand. They’ve been through a lot, these girls. Our run last year really helps us this year because they know what it takes. You notice this team — you couldn’t tell if they were winning or losing the whole way through. They keep a level head and they know what they can do and they’re very confident in what they can do.”

Jenkintown went 12-for-13 from the foul line in the fourth quarter and 17-for-19 in the game.

“That’s real big,” Romano said. “We’ve been through this before. When it comes to close games, they’re going to foul you and you have to make your shots. It was the difference tonight.”

“We want to go to the next round,” Mia Kolb added. “We knew what we had to do to win — mainly foul shots. We knew that to win games you need to hit all your foul shots. That’s what we’ve been working on, mostly.

“Foul-shooting has won us games and that’s all we do in practice.”

The league rivals traded runs in the first quarter. Jenkintown’s Tanner Lafferty hit a three-pointer on the first possession of the game and Brockwell added a basket to make it 5-0. New Hope’s Zoe Palau, Jordan Sherman and Dougherty each hit shots to take a 6-5 lead after eight minutes.

The Drakes will face Lower Moreland in the BAL championship game Saturday at 1 p.m. at Morrisville High School. When they met earlier this year, Jenkintown won, 38-29.

“It was a pretty competitive game,” Mia Kolb said, “but it should be different since it’s a playoff game — more competitive. We’re excited.”