PIAA Class 5A Girls Basketball: Marple Newtown gets fast jump, takes care of St. Hubert

PHILADELPHIA — First it was the Marple Newtown boys team that won its first state playoff game. It was the girls’ turn Wednesday night.

The Tigers scored the first 11 points in their PIAA Class 5A girls basketball tournament opener against District 12’s St. Hubert and cruised to a 48-27 win at Archbishop Ryan.

The Tigers (20-8) shot 50 percent from the floor, including 5 of 13 from 3-point distance as four players netted at least eight points. Junior point guard Mary O’Brien and senior forward Haley Levy led the way with 13 points apiece. Senior shooting guard Nikki Mostardi chipped in with 11 points and junior forward Brooke Impriano tallied eight.

“It’s so great to finally win our first game in states,” Levy said. “To make it this far, we are having so much fun.”

Marple Newtown will play Delaware County rival Springfield in the second round. The Cougars routed Lower Dauphin in their first-round game, 38-19.

Wednesday’s game was controlled entirely by the Tigers, who led 12-2 after eight minutes and never looked back. The Bambies didn’t score until the final seconds of the first quarter on a layup from Gianna Grassifuli. Her intense style – she rebounds and runs the floor whenever she has the chance – was something the Tigers prioritized on the defensive end.

“She was definitely the one we had to look out for,” Levy said. “We knew we wanted to hold them to a certain amount of points and we met our goal. At times we had to hold the ball and take our time on offense, stall the ball. The more time we have the ball in our hands on offense, the less time they can score. We wanted to be smart with the ball.”

Marple was originally scheduled to play reigning Class 5A champion Cardinal O’Hara, which is a quick four-mile drive along Sproul Rd. That, however, never came to fruition. O’Hara ceded its top seed in District 12 after the PIAA penalized the school over a transfer player’s eligibility. As a result, St. Hubert moved from No. 3 to first place in District 12. O’Hara, meanwhile, handled District 1 champion Bishop Shanahan in its first-round game.

“We’re definitely a go with the flow kind of team,” Mostardi said. “We started preparing for O’Hara right away because we knew they would be a big challenge for us, but then we found out we were playing (Hubert) so we just picked up right from there and we started scouting them and doing everything we could to get this win.”

Marple coach Ryan Wolski had a feeling his squad would come out on fire. The Tigers hit five of their first nine field goal attempts and played stifling defense on the Bambies, who shot a woeful 25 percent (11-for-44) for the game and committed six of their 13 turnovers in the first quarter.

“It broke a sweat a little bit, playing in a hot gym,” Wolski said of his team’s 11-0 start. “The girls were happy. On the road and in a gym we’ve never played in before, to get out 11-0 and get our confidence going was big for us.”

Wolski noted that the success of the boys and girls basketball teams perhaps isn’t possible without athletic director Chris Gicking.

“It’s great for both the boys and girls program. Chris Gicking started this when he took over the football program, he’s built this community back up. The guy doesn’t miss a game. He does everything for our school. Hats off to him for getting us all here where we’re supposed to be.”

Grassifuli was limited to 5 of 15 shooting and 10 points. The Bambies simply didn’t have the firepower to keep up with Marple’s big four of O’Brien, Mostardi, Levy and Impriano. Ellie DiBona also played well in the starting five, pulling down a team-high eight rebounds.

St. Hubert flirted with a run when they got within 22-13 in the final seconds of the first half. But the Tigers scored six of the first eight points of the third quarter to take a 28-15 advantage.

“That was definitely a huge part of our game plan. We wanted to lock (Grassifulli) down from the beginning,” Mostardi said. “It was everyone’s goal to get rebounds and try to keep the ball out of our hands as much as possible.  She’s definitely really strong and is a good player.”

Mostardi canned her second 3-pointer of the night to begin the fourth quarter and the Tigers ended the game on an 18-7 run.

“We kept playing as hard as we could and we weren’t giving up,” Levy said.