Despite being ‘so bad,’ Mueller has career game in leading Radnor past Penn Wood

LANSDOWNE — Ellie Mueller laughed after she was told she played one of the best basketball games of her life in the District 1 Class 5A quarterfinals Saturday.

“I was so bad,” the Radnor High senior said. “Did you watch the game? Did you see my shot chart? Are you kidding me?”

OK, the modest Mueller did struggle from the floor in the early going. But she turned it on and absolutely crushed it in the second half.

Everyone in attendance watched Radnor girls basketball’s all-time leading scorer generate a career-high in points Saturday against No. 2 Penn Wood.

Mueller produced a triple-double with 33 points, 16 rebounds and 10 steals to lead No. 10 Radnor to a wild and entertaining 69-57 victory.

The Raiders travel to Harriton High Tuesday night to face No. 3 Great Valley in the semifinal round. Coach Mark Jordan’s team locked up a spot in next month’s PIAA tournament, the program’s fifth states berth in six seasons.

Radnor’s team shirts have the slogan, “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out,” and it’s around this time every season that Jordan gets the best out of his players.

Mueller and junior guard Brianne Williams gave Jordan their very best. And so did sophomore Ellie Davis, who provided a big boost off the bench.

Mostly, though, Saturday was the Ellie Mueller Show. It took some time for the Raiders to hit their stride, but they overcame a wonky first half and 10-point deficit in the third quarter.

‘We went into the locker room at halftime (trailing by three points) and knowing that we weren’t playing the way we like to play,” Mueller said. “We weren’t running the floor, we weren’t composed. … We were in that area between pushing it and settling and that was not working for us. We started to chip away and I didn’t even realize when we went up that were up. It happened pretty fast.”

The Raiders forced the Del Val League champion Patriots to commit 11 turnovers in the third quarter. Radnor pressed and caused havoc. The rangy, athletic Mueller often got her hand on the ball to disrupt passing lanes. Penn Wood is also a team that likes to run the floor, but it couldn’t handle Radnor’s pressure and transition game.

The Raiders thus closed the third quarter on a 23-7 run. Mueller accounted for 14 points and four steals in the period. She controlled the paint and outplayed Penn Wood power forward Jada Hutt, who went for 29 points and 20 rebounds in the Patriots’ thrilling six-overtime win over Marple Newtown in the first round.

“We knew that we could turn it around on them,” Mueller said. “(Hutt) can cause some serious match-up issues down low. She has the ability to go up and get those rebounds and put them back. That was one of our main struggles going into halftime, we weren’t boxing out well and we weren’t converting on the offensive and defensive rebounds that we needed to be getting. … Once we started turning that around, we had Ellie Davis come in and start grabbing those rebounds and that was very helpful.”

Mueller approached Jordan at halftime and told him that Davis deserved to see playing time in the second half.

“She told me to put Davis in, that I’m the coach and that it’s my team,” said Jordan, who was less demonstrative on the bench than usual due to a bout of laryngitis. “I said, ‘No, Ellie, you’re the captain. It’s your team.’ She’s better at this coaching thing that I am.”

In any case, the move to insert Davis paid dividends for Radnor, which for most of the half had three or four “bigs” on the floor. Mueller, Davis, Sally Austen and Margaret Mooney provided match-up problems for the Patriots.

Radnor went up by eight points in the fourth quarter, but the Patriots had one more run in them. Sophomore guard Lashonda Smith banked a 3-pointer and scored a layup, then Xenia Gillis’ basket evened the score at 55 with less than six minutes to play. After Jordan spent a timeout, the Raiders seized control. Mueller made three consecutive buckets and Williams made six straight free throws to seal the victory.

Mueller registered 23 of her 33 points after intermission and Williams had 11 of her 15 points in the second half. Davis chipped in with four points and six rebounds, while Austen tallied six points, four rebounds, two assists and one steal.

Radnor shot a cool 21-for-32 at the charity stripe.

“We really feel like this is our year,” Williams said. “We’re excited to move forward and we’re all super-motivated. We’ve been practicing hard all season and we feel like we can go all the way.”

Smith led the way for the Patriots with 20 points, the freshman Gillis added 18 points and 11 rebounds, and Hutt finished with 10 points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots. The Patriots will look to clinch a PIAA tournament bid when they host sixth-seeded West Chester East in the playback round Tuesday.