St. Basil shakes off rust to win District 1-AA title
UPPER DUBLIN — St. Basil Academy hadn’t played in 18 days and it showed Saturday afternoon.
While the Panthers were understandably rusty when they hit the floor against New Hope-Solebury, they shook it off. After a sluggish first quarter, St. Basil got back to doing what it does best, forcing turnovers and spacing the floor, as it topped New Hope-Solebury 45-31 to win the District I Class AA title at Upper Dublin High School.
“We focused on trying to stay in shape and just working on our plays,’ forward Liz Napierkowski said. “We came ou rusty but we worked it out by the end.’
New Hope got off to a slow start, with four turnovers in its first five possessions, but that wasn’t the slowest start in the game. St. Basil opened a frigid 0-of-10 from the floor and didn’t score a single point in the first quarter despite just two turnovers.
New Hope finally found the range and hit for nine points in the final 4:24 of the frame, but their lead wouldn’t hold long. The Panthers needed just 11 ticks of the second quarter to get on the board, a Karen Lapkiweicz 3-pointer, to start a 10-0 run.
New Hope center Toni Suler stopped the run, but St. Basil simply started another one. Lapkiweicz, who had three steals in the second quarter, turned over New Hope twice, scoring four points to spark an 11-0 Basil run.
“We slowed down a little bit, we took control of the game,’ Lapkiweicz said. “We saw the traps coming, we helped our teammates out, called the screens and really talked through it.’
