Jenkintown stays perfect, rolls past Dock Mennonite
TOWAMENCIN >> The Jenkintown girls basketball team kept its record perfect intact Friday night but the Drakes continue to strive for improvement.
“We are playing well,” Jenkintown coach Jim Romano said. “And it’s nice to see each game we’re trying to work on certain things that’s going to make us better towards the end of the season.”
The Drakes had little problem improving to 15-0 overall in their visit to Dock Mennonite. Up 12 after the first eight minutes, Jenkintown blew things open by outscoring he Pioneers 23-4 in the second quarter and rolled to a 53-13 Bicentennial Athletic League win.
“We’re trying to refine, especially on the defense, I’m more of a defensive type of guy,” Romano said. “Girls like offense and so on, so I don’t really worry about the offense too much but our strength is in our defense.”
The 13 points was the fewest the Drakes (8-0 BAL Constitution) have allowed the season. Carly Mulvaney paced Jenkintown with a game-high 19 points – 10 coming in the first quarter. Sophomore Katie McGrath collected 12 of her 15 points before halftime.
“They’re ready to meet the challenge,” Romano said. “There’s a lot of pressure put on them. The community, the parents, the coaches, themselves and they’re handing it pretty well cause they know through the few years we’ve been very successful now it’s their turn to keep it going type of thing.”
Jenkintown does not have a senior on its roster but the Drakes are far from inexperienced. Juniors Mulvaney, Molly Walsh and Lauren Brockwell all started for last season’s team that made a third-straight PIAA-1A semifinal appearance a year after winning the state title.
“We had such a young group with those kids and they practice and they played against the Kolbs, the Kremps,” Romano said. “I knew going in that we had three very good players cause they played last year and we went to the eastern final again last year. And they were three sophomores so they’re stepping in and then we just have to fill the other pieces in and Katie as a sophomore definitely fills in, she’s very talented.”
Freshman Mackenzie Derstine led Dock Mennonite (3-9, 2-6 BAL Independence) with seven points
Both teams are back on the court Tuesday – Dock visiting Faith Christian at 6 p.m. while Jenkintown hosts New Hope-Solebury at 7 p.m. in a contest of the last two unbeaten sides remaining in BAL play.
“That’s going to be challenging for us cause they’re coming in and they’re coached well and they have very good players,” said Romano of New Hope-Solebury. “So we just have to make sure we play our game throughout the rest of the season, we’ll see how the ball drops so to speak.”
Mulvaney and McGrath combined for all 16 of the Drakes’ first-quarter points. Mulvaney capped off a personal 6-0 run with a jumper to make it 16-3 before a free throw by Dock’s Melissa Moyer at 41.1 seconds made it 16-4 at end of the first quarter.
Walsh scored all eight of her points in the second quarter for the Drakes, who began the period with six straight points to make it 22-4. After a Derstine basket, Jenkintown recorded the next 13 points for a 35-6 lead. Jenkintown went into halftime up 39-8.
“To be honest with you, this is only like our third JV game that we had tonight so it gives us an opportunity to build our bench up so to speak,” Romano said. “And my young girls know they come and they played the last quarter but they know going in I tell them this is a varsity competition and I have kids here within a second go back out there. So it gives us an opportunity to give experience throughout the whole bench.”
