O’Reilly breaks free, Haverford pulls away from North Penn
HAVERFORD — Annalena O’Reilly dribbled the ball at the top of the key, made a move to her right and sprinted to the basket for an easy layup.
This was a play that happened on multiple occasions in Haverford High’s District 1 Class 6A tournament opener against North Penn.
For whatever reason, the visiting Knights couldn’t combat the Fords’ ability to drive to the hoop and score. Repeatedly.
It became too easy for O’Reilly, a scrappy and fundamentally-sound guard who doesn’t look to score 14 points in a game.
Well, she did Friday night.
If O’Reilly wasn’t getting her points, senior forwards Sara Walsh and Lindsey Lane were stationed somewhere inside the paint, racking up offensive putbacks or posting up and hitting jumpers.
The first half was competitive, but the 13th-seeded Fords dominated after halftime and rolled to a 51-36 victory over No. 20 North Penn.
Haverford will travel to No. 4 Spring-Ford for a second-round game Wednesday. It marks the second straight year that coach Lauren Pellicane’s team has won a first-round home playoff game.
“It was a lot of fun. We all knew that this could be our last time wearing our white uniforms and we wanted to play well,” O’Reilly said. “We love our homecourt and we had our fans cheering us on the whole way. It was awesome.”
Annalena O'Reilly has done this exact same thing twice in the 3Q. No inside help at all on defense. @Fordsgbball 39-26 pic.twitter.com/kkS9AZuqLS
— Matt Smith (@DTMattSmith) February 16, 2019
O’Reilly’s 14-point performance was a game and season high for the senior guard. She added eight rebounds, three steals and two assists.
“I feel like they were guarding us more 1-v-1 and they weren’t really guarding us as a team,” said O’Reilly, who will play soccer at Drexel University. “I think we all focused on beating our own defenders and getting to the basket.”
Walsh scored six points in each half, grabbed five boards and supplied a game-high three assists.
“We knew we had height advantages and we could get them into foul trouble,” said Walsh, a 6-1 senior forward. “We knew we could drive to the rim and make things happen. After halftime, we knew had to come out and put them away.”
Ding-ding.
North Penn (10-13) pulled within two points right before intermission when guard Alli Lindsay was fouled in the process of shooting a 3-pointer. She banked two of three free-throw attempts and the Maidens went into the locker room feeling pretty good about themselves, trailing 19-17.
For Haverford to win, leading scorer and senior guard Erin Doherty needed to get involved on the offensive end. Through two quarters, the Catholic University commit was held to zero points on 0-for-2 shooting from the floor. Naturally, right out of the chute, Doherty drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to spark Haverford’s 10-0 run to begin the third period.
“That was huge for us,” O’Reilly said. “It kept the momentum on our side for the whole second half.”
And it certainly took pressure off everyone else.
“Erin had her 3s and we tried to look inside more,” Walsh said. “We knew we had to take control.”
The Fords (17-7) led by as many as 13 points on four different occasions, and outscored the Knights, 20-9, in the third quarter. A 5-0 spurt to start the fourth period pulled the Knights within eight points. Rachel Dunn (seven points, five rebounds) swished a pair of free throws and Lindsay (seven points) hit a 3 to trim Haverford’s advantage to 39-31.
The Fords responded. Doherty and Lane each had a basket to give Haverford a 43-31 advantage with 5:30 to play. The Fords sailed the rest of the way.
After losing an overtime heartbreaker to Garnet Valley in their regular season finale, and then falling to Springfield in the Central League semifinals, the Fords needed a few days to refocus and prepare for the district playoffs. One bugaboo all season has been their inability to finish close games, but that wasn’t an issue Friday night. Haverford shot a pristine 13-for-20 from the floor and scored 32 points in the second half.
“We got the lower end on the Springfield game,” O’Reilly said. “We have been bad at closing games out and we knew that we didn’t want to let tonight’s game get to that stage.”
Doherty finished with eight points and Lane tossed in 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
Under first-year head coach Jen Carangi, a former Villanova standout, the Knights returned to the District 1 postseason following a one-year absence. Two years ago, the Knights made it all the way to the PIAA Class 6A semifinals when Carangi was an assistant coach. Carangi molded a young team with only seniors and she is proud of their progress.
“This year, we had very little varsity experience returning. That was our first hurdle – convincing these kids that, OK, this is where we are and you belong here,” Carangi said. “The confidence piece, especially with girls, is very important and that took a little while. The girls really stepped up as the season went on. We found ourselves early in the year … not knowing how to play with a big lead. We’d get up by 10 and end up losing by eight. But I feel like as the season went on, we learned a ton.”
Val McGriff scored a team-high eight points for the Knights, who shot 23.9 percent (11-for-46) from the floor. The team’s lone senior starter, Cayla Sharkey, chipped in with three points, four rebounds and two steals
“Tonight was just one of those games where … it was so tough to keep up with them. Haverford is a tough team and they’re very well-coached,” Carangi said. “The mental lapses we had in the third quarter, you’re just not going to beat a good team when you do that. … I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team that has nine seniors (including five senior starters) like Haverford. Because they’re so experienced, when we made mistakes they were able to capitalize. We knew coming in this season that it was a tall hurdle we were going to be climbing. To the girls’ credit, I felt like they played hard. That’s the one thing about this team, win or lose, is they come in and work hard and they’re great kids. It makes it fun.”
