Upper Dublin falls in overtime to Peters Township in 6A semifinals
WINGATE >> Upper Dublin’s season and state title defense came to an end in the PIAA Class 6A semifinals Monday evening with a 51-46 overtime loss against Peters Township at Bald Eagle Area High School.
Peters Township dominated the overtime period, outscoring Upper Dublin, 12-7.
“We may have been a little shook with how regulation played out,” Upper Dublin coach Morgan Funsten said. “Going in our goal was to keep them off the offensive glass. When we’re scouting them they’ll miss two, three shots and they’ll keep getting offensive rebounds until they put it in or get fouled. That’s what hurt us down the stretch and it overtime.”
The Cardinals led for all but 15 seconds of regulation after taking a lead on the first possession of the second quarter.
Their fourth-quarter advantage peaked at five points, 37-32, when Jackie Vargas grabbed an offensive rebound and scored with 2:26 remaining.
Peters Township, the undefeated District 7 champion, hit six straight free throws to cut its deficit to one, 39-38, with one minute left. The final two free throws came on Vargas’ fifth and final foul.
“(Vargas is) a player you want in the game at the end,” Funsten said. “She helps us handle pressure. She’s the insurance policy on the back end defensively … She does a great job going straight up and that time she just didn’t get the call in her favor.”
The Cardinals weren’t able to score in the final minute of regulation after Vargas fouled out. They were called for an offensive foul on an inbounds pass and went 0-for-3 from the free-throw line down the stretch, opening the door for an Indians comeback.
“It was a sloppy end of the fourth quarter,” Funsten said, “to be expected, both teams know what’s at stake, so there’s going to be some mistakes made.
“Maybe the last couple games we haven’t been as good at the foul line as we were last year and as we’ve been in the past, but the girls put themselves in a great position to win. I’m really feeling for them right now because I know how bad they wanted it.”
Peters Township tied the game, going 1-for-2 from the stripe, with 9.7 seconds remaining.
Upper Dublin had a chance to win at the end of regulation, but turned the ball over.
The Cardinals biggest lead of the game was seven, 20-13 and 23-16, in the second quarter.
They had the ball and a seven-point lead late in the first half, but turned the ball over and committed an intentional foul. Peters scored four points — shooting 4-for-4 from the foul line — in the final 10 seconds to trim UD’s lead to 23-20.
“We had all the momentum there going into it and took a timeout and we drew something up,” Funsten said. “They turned us over, we committed a foul.
“Normally one of our strengths is finishing a quarter on a strong note. It was very uncharacteristic of us to go into halftime like that, but at the same time we had to try to forget about that and look at the big picture and see we’re still up three at halftime. I do think it had a little bit of a carryover into the second half because I didn’t think our offense in the second half was as efficient as it was in the first half.”
The Cardinals scored eight straight to start the second quarter and turned an 11-9 deficit after one into a 17-11 lead. Dayna Balasa hit a three on the first possession to put UD ahead and they led until early in the fourth. Vargas followed with a pair of free throws and Bliss Brenner scored through contact and completed the three-point play to make it a six-point lead.
Jess Polin and Balasa led the Cardinals with nine points each and Vargas and Sarah Eskew each had eight.
