McGriff, Lindsay come up clutch as North Penn holds off CB East
TOWAMENCIN >> Alli Lindsay missed the first free throw she attempted Thursday night, but made up for it by stealing the ball right back.
The North Penn junior’s following trips to the foul line weren’t nearly as dramatic because Lindsay didn’t miss again. Much like the first time the Knights and Central Bucks East played, the outcome was decided on the free throw stripe and North Penn had just the right shooter for the moment.
Lindsay had a hand in North Penn’s last 12 points, hitting 10 straight free throws and assisting Valerie McGriff’s layup as the Knights picked up a key 68-62 win over the Patriots.
“The last game, we didn’t shoot foul shots well so I was practicing them before the game and Coach (Jen Carangi) gave us the idea to visualize yourself making the foul shots,” Lindsay said. “I was thinking about my team when I was shooting those foul shots. Last time we played them, we lost on foul shots so I knew we need them to keep us going.”
Lindsay had a stat-stuffing game but hadn’t scored much until the fourth quarter. It didn’t matter once she got on a roll and the point guard said it’s totally different standing 15 feet from the rim and taking the same shot over and over again.
Offense ruled the first quarter as the Knights (11-4, 5-3 SOL Continental) and Patriots (11-5, 6-3 SOL Continental) traded scores with neither able to take a lead of greater than two possessions. Laynie Doran, one of nine different North Penn players to score, hit a three at the end of the frame to put the hosts ahead 22-20.
East center Emily Chmiel scored her team’s first six points and spent most of the evening frustrating the Knights’ defense with a 20-point effort that involved quite a few scores over double-team defending.
“She gets her points, she’s just so effective down low and they do a nice job of finding her,” Carangi said. “When she’s double-teamed and triple-teamed, she can kick it out and find open players.
“I still think we gave up too many points, in the first quarter I just thought ‘what are we doing?’ We aim for 40 for a game but all that considered, we stepped up to the challenge and in the second half buckled down.”
McGriff, who led the Knights with 17 points, spent a lot of time guarding Chmiel in the paint.
“We had more help defense present, more aggressiveness and hustle and we tried to out-rebound them,” McGriff said. “Those were four important things we came in talking about. She was a big threat, but even if she was hitting tough shots, our main priority was to make sure she didn’t get any and-ones or easy layups.”
The pace of scoring slowed in the second quarter but the teams continued to trade scores with North Penn using a 6-0 run to go u 31-23 before East came back with the last four to keep it a two-possession game at the half.
Chmiel, who added 13 rebounds, showed some deft passing by assisting back-to-back Gabby Wilga buckets to open the second half and tie the game 31-31.
North Penn responded with a 9-1 run that started with McGriff canning two at the line and Lindsay scoring on a putback and ended with Lindsay assisting an Alaina Mullaly and-one and Kate Early sticking back a miss for a 40-32 lead. The Knights wouldn’t trail again, but the game was far from over.
“This is really big,” Lindsay said. “We’re already halfway through the season and we needed this win to kickstart the end of our season and keep us going. It’s the final stretch, we’re trying to make playoffs and make the (SOL) final four.”
McGriff put North Penn up 47-40 going into the final quarter then scored the first five points of the fourth quarter. Chmiel got on a roll, scoring eight straight for the Patriots with some superb low-post scoring and touch before Mia Salvati’s foul shots pulled East within 54-50 with 3:34 to play.
East, which had just eight players in uniform on Thursday, had three in double figures with Wilga scoring nine but the bulk of their scoring had to come inside with North Penn looking to take away the kick-outs and perimeter shots.
Lindsay hovered close to a triple-double, gathering eight rebounds and dishing seven assists and got her first crack at the foul line with 2:15 left in the game. Although she missed it, her steal gave North Penn another chance and when Lindsay got fouled again, putting the Knights in the double bonus, she was locked in.
North Penn needed every point in the fourth, as Salvati buried a three off a catch-and-shoot pass from Wilga then converted a driving and-one to get the Patriots within 60-58 with 49 seconds remaining.
The Knights broke East’s press off the three-point play and while Lindsay wanted to hold the ball, she saw McGriff out ahead and wide open. The junior admitted she didn’t give McGriff the best pass to work with and both players had a time-standing-still moment as the ball danced around the rim.
“It was bouncing around and I thought ‘OK, calm down, ball. You can’t be doing all that,’” McGriff said. “I looked at my coach like ‘please don’t yell at me if this doesn’t go in’ because the physics were not on my side.”
“My heart was frozen, I was hoping it was going to go in,” Lindsay said. “The angle she had to shoot at, the way I passed it, she got it at an angle where it wasn’t a normal layup, she had to get some kind of backspin or hit the top of the backboard. I was just thinking ‘go in.’”
McGriff’s shot went in, averting crisis and Lindsay hit six straight free throws to seal up a quality win and a much-needed win. North Penn returns to action Saturday with a 2:30 p.m. visit to Gwynedd Mercy Academy.
“It’s very big for us,” McGriff said. “We can’t come into games intimidated. We have to beat the teams we think we’re capable of beating.”
NORTH PENN 68, CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 62
NORTH PENN 22 9 16 21 – 68
CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 20 7 13 22 – 62
North Penn: Alli Lindsay 2 10-11 14, Rachel Dunn 3 0-0 6, Alaina Mullaly 2 3-3 8, Carley Adams 3 2-2 9, Valerie McGriff 5 6-8 17, Imani Plaza 1 0-0 2, Laynie Doran 1 0-0 3, Kate Early 3 0-0 7, Ali Johns 1 0-0 2. Totals: 21 21-24 68
Central Bucks East: Mia Salvati 3 3-3 10, Gabby Wilga 4 0-0 9, Emily Chmiel 8 4-7 20, Aubrey DeAngelis 4 0-0 8, Emily Barry 5 5-7 15. Totals: 24 12-17 62.
3-pointers: NP – Mullaly, Adams, McGriff, Doran, Early; CBE – Salvati, Wilga.
