Perk Valley reaches 1st District 1-AAAA final, edges Upper Dublin

NORTHAMPTON >> Fool me once – shame on you. Fool me twice – shame on me. Fool me three times?

Well, the second-seeded Perk Valley girls basketball team wasn’t going to let that happen. The Lady Vikings were finally able to close out a game against sixth-seeded Upper Dublin – a 30-29 victory that sends PV to its first ever District One Class AAAA final Friday night at Temple University.

The last two times Perk Valley and Upper Dublin met – in last year’s district playoffs and a preseason tournament this season – the Vikings lost two-possession leads in the final minute of regulation and went on to lose in overtime.

Wednesday night at Council Rock South High School, the Vikings were ahead, 30-23, with 2:07 on the clock after a Taylor Hamm putback.

“That was part of our mental stuff at the end here, too,” PV coach John Strawoet said. “Even in that fall league it was such a closely contested game that we ended up losing again. Meg (Jonassen) and I kind of talked about it a couple different times, just kind of like we can’t let this happen again. It almost did.”

Then things got interesting.

Upper Dublin’s Allison Chernow made a basket and was fouled with 1:09 to go, cutting the Cardinals deficit to four.

After a Perk Valley turnover, Demi Balasa drilled a three-pointer from the top of the key to make it a 30-29 game with 37.5 seconds remaining.

Upper Dublin got the ball back a few seconds later after a PV turnover, but Chernow couldn’t connect on a layup.

Perk Valley turned the ball over – again – giving Upper Dublin a chance to win the game in the final 20 seconds.

“In the last huddle I said, ‘Look – play to win, don’t play not to lose,'” Strawoet said. “People sometimes don’t understand that, but there is a big difference between those two things. I just kept saying, ‘Play to win.'”

The Cardinals put the ball in the hands of Chernow, who scored a team-high 12 points. PV doubled her on the right wing and knocked her pass out of bounds with 0.5 left. Hamm stole UD’s ensuing inbounds pass to stamp the ticket to Temple.

“Our defense has been outstanding all year,” Strawoet said. “We believe we can match up with anybody man-to-man, we believe we can match up with them (Upper Dublin) man-to-man tonight, which we did. I had to chuckle a little bit because everyone was making a big deal out of their defense, saying they’ve been holding teams to 25 – which they have, they have a great defense also. But it’s defense that’s gotten us this far. Hopefully it takes us a little farther.”

“They went up by seven, which probably feels like 30 if you’re watching the game,” UD coach Morgan Funsten said. “Our girls didn’t quit. They fought back, got some turnovers and made some shots. I feel bad for the girls because they worked so hard for this and prepare so hard for games. When you put forth a defensive effort like that, you deserve to win – not to take anything away from (Perk Valley).”

PV’s Jonassen scored a game-high 14 points – 10 of which came in the first half.

The Vikings will face No. 12 Downingtown East, which beat No. 8 Central Bucks South 57-46,  in Friday’s final at 6 p.m. at the Liacouras Center.

Upper Dublin will play the loser of that game for third place in the district while it prepares for the state tournament.

“The season’s not over,” Funsten said. “That’s what we talked about in the locker room. This is not an end-of-the-season talk. We have to learn from the mistakes we made tonight and we have to go out and continue to get better. We still have the third place game, we still have states. We just have to use this to grow and get better.”