MARPLE — Like they had journeyed to an unfamiliar land only to lose their keys and wallet and phone, the Upper Dublin Cardinals, over and over again, were left disoriented by Cardinal O’Hara’s swarming defense.
The O’Hara Lions, runners-up from District 12, repeatedly picked Upper Dublin’s pockets — generating 16 turnovers in the first half — and ran away with a 48-19 victory in the opening round of the PIAA Class 6A playoffs Friday night.
The Lions’ primary target coming into the game was UD senior Amy Ngo, a Holy Family recruit, who took over at point guard when her younger sister Megan went down with an ACL injury last month.
“We knew Amy was a great player, so we figured if we got the ball out of her hands, we could double and trap everyone else,” said O’Hara senior Carly Coleman, who scored a game-high 20 points. “Meg (Rullo) started the game with a couple steals. From then on, we just took off. We were all energized.”
Megan Rullo finished with eight points for the Lions (22-4) and Molly Rullo added seven. Cardinal O’Hara advances to the second round of states to face Pennsbury, which ousted Hazleton 63-48.
Upper Dublin (24-6), the eighth team out of District 1, trailed 11-4 after the fourth quarter and was down 23-8 by halftime.
A key sequence happened late in the second period. Joanie Quinn knocked down a 3-pointer to extend O’Hara’s advantage to 14-8. Molly Rullo followed with a trey of her own to make it 17-8, and then Quinn scored off a quick steal to stretch the lead to 11 points.
Coleman hit a triple to open the second half that put the Lions up 26-8.
“It’s obviously a tough way to end the season, a non-competitive game like that, but the girls continued to play hard,” UD coach Morgan Funsten said. “It doesn’t diminish the success they’ve had this year. We know O’Hara is really good, and we just gave them too many easy points off of turnovers.
“You have to prove to (O’Hara) early on that you’re not intimidated and that you can handle the pressure,” he said. “I thought our girls did come out confident. … I thought our halfcourt defense was good and our rebounding was good, but we had too many live-ball turnovers where they got easy points.”
Upper Dublin outrebounded O’Hara 26-19, but turned the ball over 28 times.
“We’re a pressure team,” Coleman said. “We have a 52 defense, full-court, we’re a bunch of athletes who like to hustle. It feels awesome to be moving on after that win. It was just fun out there with my teammates. It was a great week of practice and it transferred into the game.”
UD was just 8-of-26 overall from the field. Amy Ngo ended up with six points and Tamia Clark had five.
The Cardinals lost only one game during the regular season before Megan Ngo’s torn knee in the Suburban One League tournament. Their road has been rocky since then, yet they still managed to reach states.
“The main message afterward tonight was just thanking the seniors,” Funsten said. “This is the hardest working group of seniors I’ve had, and I’ve been very spoiled by the type of people who have come through the program, the type of character they’ve had.”
Amy Ngo, Brighid Brady and Nora Brady will graduate this spring.
“It’s going to be very hard to replace them next year,” Funsten said. “Fortunately, they’ve left a nice legacy behind them, and you hope the younger girls follow in their footsteps with the type of work they put into their games over the years.”
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Cardinal O’Hara 48, Upper Dublin 19
Upper Dublin 4 4 5 6 — 19
O’Hara 11 12 21 4 — 48
UD: Amy Ngo 3 0 0-2 6, Tamia Clark 2 0 1-2 5, Bridget DiMartile 1 0 1-2 3, Nora Brady 0 1 0-0 3, Brighid Brady 1 0 0-0 2. Totals — 7 1 2-6 19.
O’Hara: Carly Coleman 7 2 0-0 20, Megan Rullo 2 1 1-2 8, Molly Rullo 2 1 0-0 7, Joanie Quinn 1 1 0-0 5, Brigid MacGillvray 1 1 0-0 5, Greta Miller 0 1 0-0 3. Totals — 13 7 1-2 48.
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Follow Christiaan DeFranco on X at @the_defranc.
