Defense leads as North Penn tops Gwynedd Mercy at Philly U

PHILADELPHIA >> Unlike most teams around the area, North Penn’s girls basketball team didn’t load up on holiday break games.

It afforded the Maidens about two good weeks of rest, but since getting back on the court, they’ve been out of sorts. It’s unusual for a team as balanced and solid as North Penn.

Sunday, they took a step toward getting back on track with a defense-led 39-29 win over a solid Gwynedd Mercy Academy team at the Play-by-Play Classic held at Philly University.

“I thought our defense was pretty solid the whole game but on offense, we’re struggling,” Maidens coach Maggie deMarteleire said. “Our decision-making has been a little bit out of synch offensively. We have a lot of kids that can score and with our decision-making, we just have to clean that up a little bit.”

Jess Huber and Irisa Ye led the Maidens (10-2, 6-0 SOL Continental) with their normal energy and hustle, with Huber picking up game MVP honors.

North Penn got off to a good start, jumping out in front of the Monarchs 10-2 and closing the first quarter with a 12-4 advantage. Ye had the highlight play of the quarter, swiping a pass and pulling a nice move in transition for a lay-up.

GMA (9-3, 5-1 AACA) did climb back in during the second quarter, trailing just 19-15 at half, but its offense was showing signs of struggle. Spotting the Maidens a multiple-possession lead , mostly on easy hoops, didn’t help.

“The first half, we struggled starting the offense where we wanted to at a certain point on the floor,” GMA coach Tom Lonergan said. “Luckily our defense played well, but not great. We gave up 12 points in the paint in the first half, a couple on second shots and our offense turned it over in the middle of the floor.”

Huber said she thinks the time off took the Maidens out of their flow a little bit on offense and the junior feels that if they just focus on driving to the basket and scoring, the rest of the offense will come together.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but I wasn’t,” deMarteleire cracked about the time off.

North Penn frustrated GMA’s main threats in Erica DeCandido and Maggie Cameron, especially around the rim. DeCandido did pick up two early fouls, which slowed her start plus the combination of Mikaela Giuliani and eventually Ye led to some tough shots.

In the second half, the Monarchs played much better in terms of not letting North Penn thrive in the paint and getting into their own offense. But they couldn’t get anything to go in.

“We did a much better job getting the ball in where we wanted to but I lost count of how many lay-ups we missed,” Lonergan said. “It’s a shame because that aggressiveness we were able to bring in the second half did give us some open jump shots. Carly Heineman was able to hit some open jump shots but we had to finish more lay-ups.”

GMA rebounded pretty well and while deMarteleire was happy with the way her team rebounded misses on the perimeter, she thought North Penn gave too many second chances to the Monarchs off the misses inside. It didn’t burn them because GMA wasn’t able to score consistently at the rim.

Huber said it’s been trying to push out any tentativeness on offense because any player on the floor can score. Huber and Sam Carangi split the team’s 10 third-quarter points evenly while Ye had four in the fourth to help close the game out.

Being able to establish a couple of scoring spurts against GMA was the key for North Penn.

“They play great defense,” Huber said. “We just had to try and overcome that and work as a team to build on what we were doing.”

Conversely, Huber noted the Maidens’ plan defensively was to take away the drive and limit DeCandidio and Brigit Coleman from doing too much damage.

The Monarchs still have a lot of confidence in themselves as a team, especially with a 9-3 record. Lonergan said his players have exams this week, so he wasn’t worried about anything lingering about the loss Sunday.

He’s also hoping the missed layups stayed in Northwest Philly.

“We were able to get a few turnovers and create some havoc on their part,” Lonergan said. “We were able to do some things from a defensive standpoint but I told our team I was very proud with the way they responded in the second half.”

deMarteleire said Huber was the spark on Sunday, with both her scoring and passing seeming to make an impact right when the Maidens most needed it, and Ye did the same in the closing stretches.

“We’re 10-2, we beat a good team and it’s a good win,” deMarteleire said.