Christopher Dock takes down Springfield-Montco
SPRINGFIELD >> In a loss to William Tennent early in the season, Springfield girls basketball coach Bill Krewson stressed the importance of his team winning the games that it can win.
Saturday, the Spartans took on another beatable opponent in Christopher Dock. Dock, however, just played better basketball all afternoon en route to an easy 58-45 win over Springfield.
“Everybody shot well, especially (Olyvia) Longacre,” Dock coach Al Grenfeld said. “I tried to stress on pushing the ball up and not driving out of control and making the extra pass and we made the extra pass all day long.”
The Pioneers (6-2, 3-1 Bicentennial Independence) were led by a good scoring effort by Olyvia Longacre, who scored a game-high 20 points, but was also supported by Lanae Hunsberger with 19 points and Megan Swintosky also in double figures with 12 points.
While Dock caught fire with good jump shooting, it stemmed from the Pioneers playing good team offense moving the ball and finding open shooters. And when the shots did not fall, Dock did a nice job of cleaning up the glass to get second-chance opportunities.
“What we didn’t do was we didn’t turn the ball over,” Grenfell said. “Usually when we get trapped we just turn and throw rather than make the good pass and I thought we made the good open pass to the open spot.”
A big reason for the discrepancy in rebounding was Springfield’s best rebounder and biggest body in general, Maura Ryan had to sit much of the game due to foul trouble. Without Ryan’s presence on the defensive end, the Pioneers were able to drive and create second-chance points by rebounding.
“They’re a tall team, so me being out and getting in quick foul trouble definitely hurt the team a lot,” Ryan said. “I don’t know why I guess I was just trying to be too aggressive and didn’t need to be.”
On the offensive end, Springfield (2-5, 1-2 Suburban One League American) was forced to keep the ball in the hands of its guards too long without the safety net of Ryan to dump it down into.
“I try to get open so they have someone to pass it to,” the senior forward said. “I’ve always played inside but I know how frustrating it can be to have no one to pass to and I find a lot of times our team isn’t moving enough so we get a guard stuck at the top with no one to pass it to.”
With the absence of Ryan, Molly Dugan tied for the team-high in scoring with 19 points, which is par for the course for Dugan as she is the Spartans leading scorer. However, all 19 of her points came in the second half including 12 fourth-quarter points.
A bit more surprising on the offensive end was a 19-point contribution from Grace Barraclough, who hit four three-pointers and was a consistent offensive threat. It was nice for Springfield to get some secondary scoring as too often in the early going it has deferred too much to Dugan.
Up next for Dock it faces a tough league challenge from New Hope Solebury Monday night. Saturday’s game should serve as a confidence boost heading into the big matchup.
