Great Valley blasts West Chester East to advance to district semifinals

EAST WHITELAND – Midway through the second quarter of Friday’s District 1 5A Girls’ Basketball Quarterfinal clash at Great Valley, the large and boisterous student section started chanting: ‘It’s too easy.’

And it was.

The Patriots were already ahead by 16, and were on their way to a surprisingly dominating 51-31 triumph over visiting West Chester East. Just two weeks ago on a neutral court, Great Valley had to fight to the end to slip past the Vikings by five in the semifinals of the Ches-Mont Tournament.

“I am very, very surprised,” acknowledged Pats’ head coach Alex Venarchik. “But we were ready for a battle. I just think playing in front of our student section, our girls really fed off of that.”

Now 22-4 overall and seeded third, Great Valley advances to the district semifinals next Tuesday at Harriton. They will face the (2) Penn Wood-(10) Radnor winner, who play on Saturday. In addition, the Patriots have now qualified for the PIAA Tournament.

“I’m not surprised. We kind of saw this coming,” said freshman Gia Sioutis, who also credited the home-court atmosphere.

“We have supportive students that come out to help us.”

A sixth seed, West Chester East falls to 18-8 and into the play-in bracket. They will play the Penn Wood-Radnor loser on Tuesday, with the winner getting a berth into the state tournament.

“Thank goodness we still have a game to play,” said Vikings’ head coach Erin Listriani. “I wouldn’t want the season to end like that.”

That’s because the Patriots led wire-to-wire, including a red-hot start. East missed 10 of its first 11 shots from the floor, quickly fell behind 13-2 and never recovered.

“Maybe the environment affected us, but I told them this is playoff basketball,” Listriani explained. “Part of that is going to opposing gyms and executing.

“I give credit to Great Valley. They played well at both ends. They are a great rebounding team and even when we had good looks, it was one and done.”

Nearly 12 minutes into the first half, the Pats were in front 18-4. In the final 30 seconds of the first half, somebody other than Lauren Klieber finally scored a point for the Vikings, who trailed 25-11 at the break.

“I was nervous after practice (Thursday),” Venarchik said. “We were sluggish and I thought that if we play with this type of energy today we are going to have trouble.

“We wanted to take (Klieber) out of her game, and make the others beat us. And Emily (Sullivan), (Emily) DuPont and Leah Valyo all did a good job of her (defensively).”

East scored six in a row to slice the lead to 12, but Great Valley responded forcefully. Especially Sioutis, who came off the bench to tally all nine of the Patriots’ third quarter points, and scored her team’s first 14 points of the second half. She finished with a career-high 16 points.

“In the beginning of the season I was a little bit shaky and nervous, but now it’s getting easier,” Sioutis said.

“All of the girls kept telling me just to keep pushing through because I was kind of down on myself in the first half.”

Thanks to Sioutis and fellow freshman Laura Lum, Great Valley’s bench outscored East 22-0. Senior starter Tessa Liberatoscioli scored seven of her nine points in the first quarter.

“Gia showed glimpses during the regular season,” Venarchik said. “All season we’ve been telling her to slow down. She is a scorer.

“She reminds us of Tessa (Liberatoscioli) when she was a freshman. Tonight she took her time and it paid off. She played awesome.”

Klieber scored 12 of her game-high 19 in the second half, and freshman teammate Mikayla Kuchner added eight. But the rest of the Vikings’ lineup combined to score just four points.

“We have other kids that can score, but I was disappointed as a team that we weren’t more aggressive,” Listriani said. “It surprised me because that’s what I addressed at every timeout.

“I kept saying: ‘What are we waiting for?’ We were just hesitant.”

Great Valley 51, West Chester East 31

West Chester East                          4 7 7 13 — 31

Great Valley                                     16 9 9 15 — 51

WEST CHESTER EAST – A. Douglass 1 0-0 2; Kerns 0 0-2 0; Kushner 4 0-2 8; Klieber 7 2-2 19; Merten 1 0-0 2. Totals 13 2-6 31.

GREAT VALLEY – Liberatoscioli 4 0-2 9; DeRoberts 2 1-2 5; Sullivan 1 2-2 5; DuPont 2 1-1 5; Sioutis 7 1-3 16; Lum 2 2-2 6; Curley 2 0-0 5. Totals 20 7-12 51.

Three-point goals: Klieber 3, Liberatoscioli, Sullivan, Sioutis, Curley.