Dominant third quarter leads Upper Dublin past Abington

UPPER DUBLIN >> Upper Dublin dominated Abington for a three-minute and 39-second stretch in the third quarter Tuesday night. The Cardinals made the right passes, open girls hit their shots and the defense buckled down during an 11-2 run shortly after halftime.

The nine-point advantage proved to be the difference as the Cardinals picked up the Suburban One League Liberty Division win, 49-40, at Upper Dublin High School.

Amy Ngo and Bliss Brenner got the Cardinals off to a fast start in the second half. Ngo made a layup to break a 23-23 tie and Brenner hit a three-pointer to extend the lead to five. Abington’s Khalis Whiting immediately responded to Brenner’s three with one of her own to make it a two-point game 2:10 into the third quarter.

That’s when Upper Dublin took off. Ngo made two more layups while Jess Polin and Brenner each scored at the basket for a 36-28 lead. Sarah Eskew capped off the run with a three-pointer to make it 39-28.

The final five points of the 11-2 run – a Ngo basket and Eksew’s triple – came on beautiful passes. On an out-of-bounds play, Polin found for Ngo all alone under the basket for her score and Balasa looked off the defense to find a wide open Eskew for her three.

“We tried to take advantage of them switching a lot of screens,” Upper Dublin coach Morgan Funsten said. “The first game and the book on us is to switch a lot on screens, but when you have Jess Polin being able to make the passes that she does – we got some easy baskets in the third and the story was defensively. If Khalis was as hot as she was all night – for us to be able to extend the lead like we did in the third quarter was very important.”

“When all five girls on the floor are able to score it’s so helpful,” Polin said. “It’s so hard to defend us when everyone on the floor can score. Amy under the basket – she had a nice slip. I just read it, I saw her there, great finish. Then a clutch shot by Sarah and great pass by Dayna. We just stay composed on offense, stay patient and we’ll get good stuff.”

The Cardinals (11-2, 7-2 SOL Liberty) went to the fourth with a nine-point lead, 39-30, and never let their advantage drop below five.

“We’re better than this,” Abington coach Dan Marsh said. “They outplayed us. They outcoached us. They beat us tonight. They had a nice adjustment to the way we played defense against them the first time.

“They were very prepared like they always were, but I’m disappointed with our effort. I just don’t understand. I get that we’re young – we’re starting four sophomores and a junior – but stage fright at some point should go away. I really felt like they were afraid of the limelight tonight, afraid to make mistakes.”

Cire Worley scored seven of the Ghosts (8-3, 6-3 SOL Liberty) first eight points of the fourth to make it a 43-38 game with two-and-a-half minutes to play.

From there, Upper Dublin’s defense locked in while the offense played keep-away. Ngo hit a pair of free throws to get the lead back to seven before Polin grabbed a steal. After Eskew went 1-for-2 from the free-throw line, Brenner blocked a shot and hit two free throws to make it 48-38 with 73 seconds left.

“The biggest thing for us is getting a stop after we score offensively,” Eskew said. “We started to do that in the second half and towards the end.”

Eskew, who hit a three-pointer early in the fourth quarter, had the defensive task of guarding Whiting. Funsten was happy with Eskew’s performance against Abington’s junior star.

“The task of having to guard Khalis is so difficult,” Funsten said. “(Eskew’s) been at another level mentally this year. She’s always been a very mature girl, but she’s taking her maturity to a whole nother level this year and it’s showing up in the confidence she plays with. It was really fun to see her breakout offensively as well. When you’re constantly covering the best player on the other team, you spend so much energy on defense that it’s hard to find rhythm offensively but I thought she was aggressive all night and really made big plays for us.”

“It’s always tough guarding Khalis,” Eskew said, “but I think I just come into the game, I know what she likes to do and her tendencies and I just come as prepared as I can be.”

Upper Dublin never trailed in the game.

Balasa started the scoring with a three-pointer – her first of three first-half threes – and the Cardinals played in front until the final minute of the first half. Abington’s Ally Holden hit a three-pointer to tie the game at 23 with 50 seconds remaining in the second quarter. That score held through halftime until Ngo put Upper Dublin ahead for good early in the third quarter.

Eskew led the Cardinals with 16 points and Ngo joined her in double figures with 13. Balasa and Brenner each had nine points.

Worley led the Ghosts with 16 points and Whiting added 12.

Upper Dublin 49, Abington 40

Abington 9 14 7 10 – 40

Upper Dublin 14 9 16 10 – 49

AB: Worley 5 4-4 16, Browser 0 0-0 0, Helm 2 3-6 7, Day 0 0-0 0, Whiting 4 3-3 12, Holden 1 0-0 3, Jackson 0 2-2 2, McGinley 0 0-0 0, Stonehouse 0 0-0 0. Total 12 12-15 40.

UD: Brenner 3 2-2 9, Bilger 0 0-0 0, Sarnoski 0 0-0 0, Polin 1 0-1 2, Ngo 4 5-6 13, Eskew 5 4-7 16, Balasa 3 0-0 9. Total 16 11-16 49.

Three-point goals: AB: Worley 2, Whiting, Holden. UD: Balasa 3, Brenner, Eskew 2.