Spring-Ford’s bench, defense close down Souderton in District 1-6A semifinals

FRANCONIA >> Call it big bench energy.

Among his many other sayings and phrases, Spring-Ford girls basketball coach Mickey McDaniel likes to tout that a good team is only as good as its bench. With their starting five feeling like they were in jail thanks to Souderton’s defense for a quarter-and-a-half Wednesday night, the Rams turned to their bench for that infusion of life it’s provided so often this season.

The bench provided the shot and the No. 11 Rams’ defense did the rest, putting the clamps on the No. 2 Indians for a 36-24 win that sends Spring-Ford to Temple to defend its District 1-6A title.

“You’re only as good as your bench, and I don’t just mean in a game,” McDaniel said. “That’s every day in practice and the enthusiasm you bring on the bench. Our bench has really been stepping up in practice, they were enthusiastic again tonight and then Aaliyah (Solliday) and Meg (Robbins) come in and do a terrific job.

“Tonight, you have your leading rebounder and top scorer off the bench.”

Solliday has been instant-offense all season for Spring-Ford and she ignited the Rams’ 8-0 run over the second half of the second quarter that turned the tide of the game after Souderton had gotten off to a strong 14-8 start. With the Indians’ Casey Harter locking up Anna Azzara and Mac Pettinelli in check after a fast start, the defending champions needed points from somebody and they didn’t really care how they got them.

Enter Solliday, who banked in a pair of 3-pointers including the go-ahead bucket at the halftime horn and added a fastbreak assist as Spring-Ford spun the deficit into a 16-14 advantage. The sophomore, at 5-foot-6, also had plenty to contribute with a team-best nine rebounds off the bench.

“We just needed a little boost,” Solliday said. “Once we saw things start to go in, we’d get the confidence that more would start going in.”

Souderton’s Erin Bohmueller sank a three with 1:09 left in the first for an 11-7 lead, then the Indians wouldn’t get another field goal until Harter turned a steal into an and-one with 2:40 left in the fourth quarter. The SOL Colonial league champions combined for just two total points in the second and third quarters and were just stymied by Spring-Ford’s help-heavy man defense.

“They had a really good defensive game plan, it’s how I would probably defend us and I needed to do a better job of figuring out how to put our girls in a better position for success offensively,” Souderton coach Lynn Carroll said. ” At this point in the season, you’re not beating anyone scoring two points combined in the two middle quarters. That’s a given.

“Spring-Ford, they deserved it. Robbins came in and had huge, huge baskets for them.”

In its last two playoff games, wins over CB South and Perk Valley, the Indians had good starts but had spells where they let the opposition back into the game only to find a way out of it. Wednesday, the Indians just didn’t have an answer for the Rams’ defense, which walled off the lane, made every take to the rim contested and finished stops with rebounds.

Souderton, which was chasing its first district title game appearance since winning the championship in 2018, will have to regroup quickly for the third-place seeding game on Friday.

“I got out-coached, I didn’t adjust and didn’t adjust early enough and there were things defensively I wanted our girls to do in the fourth quarter and we haven’t practiced it enough and that’s on me,” Carroll said. “We have to learn from it and get better. (Spring-Ford) absolutely deserved to win this game and what an incredible thing for them to be back in the district championship game after everything they lost to graduation.”

Solliday’s spark had helped turn things around on offense in the first half. Robbins would make sure they stayed on track in the second half.

The 6-foot-2 junior was the lynchpin on defense and finished with a team and game-high 10 points, all coming after halftime. Wednesday presented a good matchup for Robbins to be effective, with Souderton forward Teya McConnaha usually doing most of her damage in the paint and the rest of her teammates already trying to funnel drivers into contested shots inside.

“We understand certain players will need to step up for certain games,” Robbins said. “I just stayed in the paint the entire team and helped out wherever needed.”

Robbins closed the third quarter with seven straight points, including a traditional three-point play assisted by Pettinelli, then opened the fourth with three straight that gave Spring-Ford a 30-17 edge with 3:27 to play.

“We didn’t just want to chuck up a three,” Solliday added. “We saw Megan, we trusted her and she did her job down there.”

Harter would go end-to-end off a steal, drawing the whistle for good measure on the Rams’ next possession to snap a nearly 23-minute long field goal drought, but it was too little, too late for the Indians. Carroll felt her team, which doesn’t have a senior on the roster, started pressing offensively and wasn’t patient enough on offense which led to things spiraling downward in the middle quarters.

All season, Spring-Ford has earned plaudits for its offense, but in this postseason, the PAC champion’s defense has been pretty good. McDaniel gave all the credit to his assistants for the defensive plan and even more to his players for going out and executing it.

It’s something they work at, even if it can sometimes get buried under a barrage of threes when things are clicking on the offensive side of the court.

“People undermine the fact that defense can win games, even if your offense isn’t going strong,” Pettinelli said.

While Spring-Ford, which played in its fifth straight district semifinal, is back in the title game, it will be a new experience for most of the roster save Azzara and Pettinelli. However, the two sophomores have never played at Temple either, with last year’s final held in S-F’s gym and they’ll have their work cut out going against top-seeded and unbeaten Plymouth Whitemarsh, a 47-36 winner over No. Pennsbury, in a rematch of the 2021 final.

“We’ve been underdogs since Day One,” Robbins said. “We’ve been counted out, but we’ve proven ourselves again and again.”

Spring-Ford 36, Souderton 24

SPRING-FORD 8 8 11 9 -36

SOUDERTON 13 1 1 9 – 24

SF: Anna Azzara 2 2-4 6, Katie Tiffan 1 2-2 4, Mac Pettinelli 2 2-6 7, Megan Robbins 4 2-3 10, Aaliyah Solliday 3 1 3- 9. Totals: 12 9-18 36

S: Brooke Fenchel 1 0-0 2, Erin Bohmueller 1 5-6 8, Mikayla McGillian 1 0-0 2, Casey Harter 2 1-1 5, Teya McConnaha 1 0-0 2, Grace McDonough 1 3-4 5. Totals:  7 9-11 24

3-pointers: SF – Solliday 2, Pettinelli; S – Bohmueller