North Penn run sends Garnet Valley to playbacks
CONCORD — A year ago, Garnet Valley rode the wave created by a senior-dominated team that started the playoffs strong and concluded the postseason in Hershey playing for the PIAA Class 6A championship.
If the Jags want to be playing in March this year, they will have to come out of the district tournament losers bracket after dropping a 44-35 decision to North Penn Tuesday night.
Garnet Valley’s six-point halftime lead disintegrated under a 10-0 North Penn run in the opening minutes of the second half.
“Give them credit,” GV coach Joe Woods said. “They made adjustments and took us out of our game. We played well defensively in the first half, but then they started attacking, made their shots and got us out of what we wanted to do.”
Abbey Anderson, one of Garnet Valley’s senior captains, knew what to expect from the 10th-seeded visitors, who advanced with a win over Boyertown.
“Two of their players — Alaina Mullaly and Kate Early — were my (AAU) teammates with the Collegeville Jaguars last summer,” said Anderson, who scored five points and added three assists. “We knew they had a tough team.
“Now we know how much harder we are going to have to work if we want to keep on going. We’ve got playback games we have to win if we want to make it back to states.”
Mullaly scored six of her 12 points in the fourth period, including a 3-point basket that came after a steal by freshman Abby Plaugher and gave North Penn (17-6) a five-point lead.
“Our seniors were tough from the foul line in the fourth period,” North Penn coach Jen Carangi, a former Villanova player, said after Mullaly and Valerie McGriff (17 points) both went 4-for-4 from the line in the final eight minutes.
“And the freshman (Plaugher, who came off the bench to grab two rebounds, get a pair of assists and make one steal) had the big play with that steal and pass to (Mullaly). We were much better in the second half.”
Woods, who was missing junior starter Kendall DiCamillo (knee injury) was disappointed that his seventh-seeded team (18-5) got only six field goals in the second half, with five coming from junior Jessica Brewer, who had team-highs with 16 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore Ava Possenti chipped in with seven points and five steals.
“We knew that team was capable of scoring a lot of points,” Woods said. “We didn’t make the adjustments we needed to when they changed things up on us.
“The thing is that we know the season didn’t end just because we lost this game today. We’ll get back to work at practice and do what we can to be ready when we play again.”
Anderson, who hopes to get into sports management and is looking at Temple and Delaware for her college education, tried her best to put what had just happened behind her.
“It’s going to bother us,” she said. “But we have to be looking forward and be ready to move on from this game.”
