Allen sizzles for 33 points as Archbishop Wood tops Archbishop Ryan
WARMINSTER >> Ryanne Allen showed why she earned a green light on Saturday afternoon.
The Archbishop Wood sophomore found a zone early and never cooled off as she lit up Archbishop Ryan’s defense. Her quick start kept the Vikings afloat early and her sharpshooting efforts only helped stretch the lead once her teammates settled in.
Led by Allen’s 33 points, Wood topped the Ragdolls 73-35 as part of the Diane Mosco Foundation Shootout.
“Now it’s just a comfort level for her,” Wood coach Mike McDonald said. “She’s understanding what we want as coaches and what we’re running as an offense. She has the green light, we’ve told her multiple times if her feet are set and she can get it off, she has my permission to shoot it because she works at it and deserves to have that opportunity.”
Allen shot 11-of-19 overall and went 8-of-15 from 3-point range and even converted a four-point play in a fluid performance.
A 6-foot-1 forward, Allen jumped right into Wood’s starting lineup as a freshman and by the end of the season, was knocking down big shot after big shot. She spent the summer playing with the Philadelphia Belles AAU program, is drawing a ton of college interest and came into the winter ready to be an even bigger part of Wood’s rotation.
Saturday, her team needed her to answer the bell early. Allen opened up 3-of-4 from the field and scored Wood’s first eight points while the rest of the team struggled to a 9-8 deficit at the end of the first quarter.
“We were lucky to find her a lot, she shoots it so well and was able to get a lot of shots off,” McDonald said. “Fortunately, we were able to keep her away from that third foul in the first half using offense-defense, with a lot of fouls being called it gave us stops to get her in and out.”
Allen ended up scoring the first 13 points of the game for Wood and by halftime, she and Kaitlyn Orihel had combined for all but one of the Vikings’ 25 points. Orihel, who had eight points, also converted a four-point play to give Wood a 19-14 lead before Allen drilled a trey for a 22-14 edge in the second quarter.
Archbishop Ryan doesn’t have the same size Wood does but the Ragdolls had plenty of toughness and a quality player in point guard Tori Nigro, which was enough to trouble the Vikings despite Wood’s 25-18 halftime lead.
Wood made a couple adjustments at halftime on the defensive end and offensively, just kept going to No. 5.
“I thought when we got Izzy Larsen back in the game up top, she was really putting the pressure on up top with double-teams, making it hard to get out of there and it led to steals and easier possessions for us,” McDonald said. “We decided to face-guard Tori Nigro with Lindsay Tretter. She was the one facilitating, she was the floor general for them, very poised and played excellent so we were trying to get her out of the game and make other kids make plays.”
Ryan opened the second half with a three, cutting the lead to four points before Allen steadied things again. The sophomore splashed a triple, Wood got a stop and on the next trip down, Allen buried a corner three while getting fouled and hit the freebie to cap the four-point play.
Wood used an 8-0 run in the middle of the quarter and a 7-0 run capped by Noelle Baxter’s trey to end the frame with 25 points as a team and a 50-26 lead.
Allen hit her last three early in the fourth quarter then spent the rest of the game on the bench cheering on the team’s reserves as they kept things going. Wood hit 14 treys as a team and freshman Alexandra Fleming, who hit two of them, was second on the squad with 10 points.
Wood travelled to Maryland on Sunday as part of the She Got Game Classic and will head to Arizona on Tuesday for the annual Nike Tournament of Champions. With a daunting slate coming before jumping back to PCL play and a looming game with Germantown Academy on Jan. 5, it’s a good stretch for the Vikings to improve as a team.
“We want to get better,” McDonald said. “We have to figure out the defensive urgency we’re going to need to play with out there. The next five games are some of the best teams we’ll see all season so we want to make sure we’re competing, figuring things out and seeing who can fit in what spots.”
ARCHBISHOP WOOD 8 17 25 23 – 73
ARCHBISHOP RYAN 9 9 8 11 – 35
AW (73): Ryanne Allen 11 3-6 33, Bri Bowen 2 0-0 4, Noelle Baxter 1 0-0 3, Dana Kiefer 1 0-0 3, Lindsay Tretter 1 1-2 3, Izzy Larsen 1 0-0 2, Kaitlyn Orihel 2 5-5 8, Alexandra Fleming 3 2-2 10, Delaney Finnegan 1 0-0 3, Kara Meredith 1 0-0 2. Totals: 24 11-16 73
AR (35): Tori Nigro 4 1-2 10, Gianna Grassifulli 2 1-3 5, Cait Geiger 0 1-2 1, Gabi DeLuisi 3 5-10 11, Sierra Didonato 1 1-2 4, Mia Stock 1 0-0 2, Mackenzie Reed 1 0-0 2. Totals: 11 11-21 35
3-pointers: AW – Allen 8, Fleming 2, Baxter, Kiefer, Orihel, Finnegan; AR – Nigro, Didonato
