Mount St. Joseph pulls away from Pottsgrove in district 5A first round
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> Don’t put unwavering stock in records or tournament seedings.
The Mount St. Joseph girls basketball team didn’t Tuesday evening when it visited Pottgrove for a District 1-5A playoff opener. And the Mounts were a textbook example of that mindset, rolling up a 61-46 victory over the Falcons.
Its lower seed (12th) and middle-road-of-the-record (11-13) notwithstanding, MSJ played a solid second half after fifth-seeded Pottsgrove (17-6) came out of the first with a 28-26 edge.
The outcome certainly didn’t surprise head coach Jim Roynan, given his team’s challenging regular-season schedule.
“Being a 12 seed is tough,” he said, citing three games with second-seeded Villa Maria — twice in the week of Feb. 4-9. “Our record doesn’t reflect how we played.”
Comparative records showing, Pottsgrove validated its high 5A seeding. The Falcons won the Pioneer Athletic Conference’s Frontier Division and qualified for the league’s Final Six Playoffs, led by the individual performances of Riley Simon and Sierra Potts.
But their tight play against the Mounts in the first half couldn’t carry over to the second. MSJ opened the third quarter with an 8-2 run for a lead the Falcons couldn’t answer down the stretch.
“They (Mounts) kept getting better as the season went on,” Pottsgrove head coach Mike Brendlinger noted. “We turned the ball over two many times. If you have 22 turnovers, it’s difficult to win.”
The Mount was bolstered by three starters scoring in double figures. Lauren Vesey and Taylor Sistrunk shared the game lead with 17 points, and Grace Niekelski added another 14.
Sydney Mowery was Pottsgrove’s double-figure performer, getting eight of her 12 points in the first quarter. Sierra Potts followed with nine, collecting all off 3-pointers.
“We do it (scoring) different ways,” Roynan said. “Vesey and Sistrunk led us tonight, and we needed every point they got.
The first quarter was played particularly tightly, the Falcons pulling even three times before MSJ came out with a 14-13 lead. Pottsgrove built its biggest lead late in the second, 26-21; and after the Mounts made it a 26-26 game, Riley Simon laid up off a steal to come out on top in the first.
From there, the Falcons answered Sistrunk’s banker with Mowery’s jumper from the paint. But the Mounts went up 34-30 with baskets by Sistrunk and Lauren Cunningham (seven points) giving them a 34-30 lead.
“We talked at the half about things we did that were uncharacteristic,” Roynan said. “We felt if we could clean them up, we could have a good game.”
While Pottsgrove got the deficit down to three (47-44) early in the fourth, MSJ went on a 14-point run inside the final 38 seconds. A banker by Mowery at the end proved to be the Falcons’ swan song for the winter.
“We had a nice season. There were goals we accomplished,” Brendlinger said. “We wanted to win our division and be in the Final Six, and we did them. We also wanted to advance in districts, so that was one thing that didn’t happen.”
Pottsgrove has considerable promise for next year. It graduates just one senior (Jordyn Mayes) and has one junior in Summer Walker. The remainder of the roster was sophomores.
“We have plans to improve, things we’ll get corrected, ” Brendlinger said. “We should go further next year.”
