Taylor Wilson’s huge night helps Archbishop Carroll best Lansdale Catholic for perfect PCL mark
LANSDALE >> Taylor Wilson knew it was going to be a good night as soon as she and her Archbishop Carroll team started their warm-up.
She didn’t realize how good a night it would end up being for her, but all Wilson and the rest of the Patriots were worried about as they first hit the floor at Lansdale Catholic was perfection. They’d won their first nine games in Philadelphia Catholic League and they really wanted to put the final tally up in the win column.
Behind a very good night, 29 points worth of one, Archbishop Carroll bested the Crusaders 62-29 on Thursday to secure a perfect PCL regular season.
“How we warm up is how we’re going to play in the first quarter, we had a great warm-up and it really set the momentum that we were 9-0 and we wanted to be undefeated,” Wilson said. “We wanted to win every single game in the league, so that energy is what pushed us.”
It’s not like a big game is a rare occasion for Wilson, and the junior had even made her way to the LC student section’s comprehensive scouting report. Just before the junior took the opening tip, someone yelled out “Number 22 can shoot” in reference to Wilson’s uniform number and 10 seconds later, she was converting a layup off an assist from her sister, sophomore Brooke Wilson to prove them right.
The elder Wilson scored the Patriots’ first 10 points, assisted the next basket then scored again as Carroll (15-4, 10-0 PCL) picked apart the Crusaders’ defense in a 17-5 first quarter. Taylor Wilson was the beneficiary on Thursday and she smartly credited her teammates for getting her the ball as the Patriots assisted seven of their eight baskets in the frame while noting it’s just a result of Carroll’s team-oriented success on both ends of the floor.
“I’ve been working a lot on my post moves and (LC) is a smaller team, so that definitely helped me but I also can’t score without my teammates getting me the ball,” Wilson said. “We’ve grown so much, we work so hard every day in practice and it’s always working on team things, like team defense and team offense. We’re not running our plays through one person, every game, it’s a new person who is scoring.”
Taylor Wilson was also blisteringly efficient, hitting 13 of the 17 shots she took while also contributing six rebounds, two assists and two steals. She also had the shot of the game, saving a busted play in the final act of the first half to get off and sink a 3-pointer with just tenths of the second left that sent the Patriots to the break with a 32-13 lead.
“I kind of knew from the beginning it was going to be a good game and that we were ‘on’ tonight but that sealed it,” Wilson said. “We were really into this game and wanted to win it.”
If Carroll scores as a team, then it most certainly defends as a team. From the opening tip, the Patriots made things extremely difficult for the Crusaders (14-6, 7-3 PCL), who still had an outside shot at moving up to the PCL’s third seed entering play.
Patriots senior Grace O’Neill didn’t give LC sharpshooter Olivia Boccella much daylight to put up shots and after Brooke Wilson picked up a couple early fouls, Meg Sheridan took over guarding the Crusaders’ dynamic Gabby Casey. Casey, who had been running rampant over PCL competition this season, finished with just 10 points due in part to some frustratingly effective defense by Sheridan and the rest of the Patriots.
The junior didn’t score a point, but her efforts were no less vital than any of Wilson’s 29 tallies.
“She’s an amazing player, I’ve seen all the stats and watched her play on film, but I think with a lot of people, you can get them frustrated just by being physical back on them,” Sheridan said. “Sometimes, that gets in people’s heads. Making sure she doesn’t get the ball, that has to be the main focus but I know my teammates are always going to be there to help.”
While the night didn’t go well overall for the Crusaders, they did get a good effort out of freshman Saniyah Littlejohn. The guard scored eight points and had five steals and was effective at breaking down defenders off the dribble.
Lansdale Catholic slots in as the No. 4 seed for the playoffs and should face a rematch with Neumann-Goretti in the quarterfinals. The Saints (5-4 PCL) have one game remaining in league play but beat Conwell-Egan (5-5 PCL), giving them the tiebreaker for the No. 5 seed should the finish with identical records.
The Crusaders host Nazareth Academy on Saturday for Senior Day to close the regular season.
Wilson didn’t need a huge second quarter, scoring just six points including the buzzer-beater, but she picked right back up in the third. She totaled 11 points in the frame, including a pair of and-one drives as the Patriots all but put the game away with a 24-8 advantage in the frame.
Getting through the grind of the PCL without a league loss is a difficult accomplishment. Lansdale Catholic had a perfect 10-0 record in the Blue Division during the 2019-20 season when the PCL experimented with a two-division system but the last team to go unbeaten through the full league slate was Neumann-Goretti in 2017-18.
While the ultimate goal is to get back to the Palestra and lift the PCL championship, the Patriots aren’t just dismissing their regular season efforts either.
“It’s a testament to all the work we’ve put in, it’s such a great accomplishment and I couldn’t be prouder,” Wilson said. “I couldn’t have wanted to do it with a better group of girls.”
Having beaten everyone else in the league during the regular season, the Patriots know they’ve become the team to beat heading into the playoffs.
“We have the target,” Sheridan said. “We just try to keep calm about it, practice our hardest and do our best. When we’ve done that, we’ve usually been able to pull through.”
ARCHBISHOP CARROLL 12 20 24 6 – 62
LANSDALE CATHOLIC 5 8 8 8 – 29
AC: Brooke Wilson 4 1-2 9, Taylor Wilson 13 2-4 29, Grace O’Neill 2 2-2 8, Maggie Grant 1 0-0 3, Chloe Bleckley 1 0-0 2, Courtland Schumacher 2 0-0 6, Machaela Henry 2 1-1 6. Totals: 25 6-9 62
LC: Saniyah Littlejohn 4 0-1 8, Nadia Yemola 1 0-0 2, Olivia Boccella 0 1-2 1, Lauren Edwards 1 0-0 2, Gabby Casey 4 2-4 10, Cassidy Saulino 2 1-2 6, Sam McHugh 0 0-1 0. Totals: 12 4-10 29
3-pointers: AC – O’Neill 2, Grant, T Wilson, Henry, Schumacher
