Vesey, MSJ bounce back to upset No. 1 Springfield

LOWER MERION — Mount St. Joseph junior guard Lauren Vesey heard the chanting from the Springfield student section.

A chorus of “Airball, airball, airball” rained down every time she touched the ball in the second half. Vesey shrugged it off.

She let her defense and foul shooting do the talking.

“I definitely did not shoot the ball well tonight, and I definitely will be shooting a lot more before the championship,” Vesey said. “I hear it and I’ve learned to be unfazed by it. I mean, it gets amusing at some point …”

Notice how Vesey said she would be practicing her shot leading up to the “championship.” You see, the 12th-seeded Magic are on this, uh, magical carpet ride in the District 1 Class 5A tournament.

Tuesday night at Harriton, MSJ knocked off top-seeded Springfield, 52-42, to advance to the final at Temple University’s Liacouras Center Saturday. The Magic will face Catholic Academies League rival and second-seeded Villa Maria.

At the end of the day, Mount’s student section got the last laugh. “Start the buses!” was the choice of vocal retaliation directed at the departing Springfield students.

Vesey scored 10 points, dished out five assists and went 6-for-8 from the foul line in the fourth quarter. Grace Niekelski (15 points, six rebounds) and Lauren Cunningham (12 points, eight rebounds) also reached double figures in scoring for Mount.

Springfield (23-4) will host a playback game for third place Friday against West Chester Henderson.

Mount St. Joseph is a No. 12 seed only on paper. The turning point was a team meeting in the middle of January which changed the trajectory of its season.

“I just gathered all the girls together and said, let’s figure out why we’re not playing to our capabilities and figure out what we need to do to change things going forward. From that point on, there was a sense about them where they were going to give it all that they have,” Mount coach Jim Roynan said. “We played a really tough schedule — Council Rock North, Bonner & Prendie, Germantown Academy, Cardinal O’Hara. That came at a time when they weren’t really feeling it about themselves, but they kept getting closer and closer to these teams and, once we got back into league play, they just started to play really well.”

It also hurt the Magic that a handful of seniors graduated from the 2017-18 squad, which left a big void in the locker room.

“Not a lot of them played — two of them were injured — but we had a lot of leadership on the team,” Vesey said. “Coming into this year, we were lacking that in a way. It was an adjustment. And we’re pretty young; we start one senior, three juniors and a sophomore. And our bench, the first player off is a sophomore. I think, adjusting to that, it was difficult and just figuring out how to play together. Once we figured it out, we really picked it up in the last four weeks. And we played some really hard teams. I’d say our record is deceiving, but it’s paying off now because now we’re ready.”

Springfield seemed destined for a runaway win in the opening minutes. Alyssa Long, Belle Mastropietro and Alexa Abbonizio each hit a 3-point field goal to put the Cougars in front, 9-0. Mount’s 3-2 defensive zone was not working.

“Once we settled down … we had to stop their shooters and get them frazzled,” Vesey said. “We know our offense comes from our defense.”

There was a familiarity between the teams. MSJ eliminated Springfield with a 41-40 victory in the second round of the tournament last season.

“i know they were a hard, aggressive team,” Vesey said. “We said that our defense would decide the game today. We were able to get out there and stop their shooters. We were able to stop No. 24 (Jordan D’Ambrosio) from getting into the lane and scoring. Our defense really kept us in the game.”

Springfield shot 5-for-11 from the floor in the first quarter, including 4-for-6 from 3-point range. But due in large part to Mount’s change in defensive schemes, the Cougars shot 7-for-34 over the final three quarters.

“When we saw they beat Radnor (in the quarterfinals), we were told that their 12-seed meant nothing. They were a very good 12-seed, so we knew it wasn’t a real 1-vs-12 game,” said Long, junior point guard, who finished with nine points and two assists. “It definitely didn’t fall our way, the shots didn’t fall our way. We had a couple of defensive lapses that are uncharacteristic of us. So, they got easy buckets and they made shots and were very good with their foul shots.

“They were in a zone the first couple minutes, then they came out of it, ball pressured us and made us play a different game than we did in the first couple of minutes. They settled in and it became a real game.”

Kelly Rothenberg’s short jumper in the waning seconds of the first half cut Springfield’s lead to 22-20. Cunningham banked a 3-pointer early in the third period to tie the game, but Carli Johnston answered with a bucket to put Springfield back in front. Mount’s Taylor Sistrunk drove to the rim for to tie things up again, igniting a game-changing run of nine straight points by the Magic. The Cougars found themselves trailing by 10 less than two minutes into the fourth and never recovered.

Belle Mastropietro scored a game-high 19 points, grabbed eight rebounds and supplied three assists for the Cougars. That all-around solid effort was far from enough, though.

“They had good athletes, they battled hard. We expected to see both man and zone from them, and we did,” Springfield coach Ky McNichol said. “They did a nice job and had a lot of different kids step up for them tonight. For us … we just didn’t play our best game tonight.”

Springfield is now forced to reopen its home gym Friday night, something it had no intention of doing. They thought Friday’s victory in the quarterfinals would be the last time any Springfield team would play in Blue Gym, which is set for demolition before the start of next school year. Springfield has gone undefeated at home this season.

“It’s not over,” Long said. “We’re fortunate that we get to still play and prove ourselves Friday night against Henderson and then we can make a run in states. We have to figure out what we want to do. Do we want to roll over and die and let this loss define our season, which it doesn’t at all? Or do we want to come back in states and hopefully make a run for it?”