First major battle fought in NCAA League

Posted 6/27/11

[caption id="attachment_6849" align="alignright" width="229" caption="Germantown Academy graduate Kris Guynn looks for an inside cutter during an NCAA League outing. (Photo by Tom Utescher)"] …

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First major battle fought in NCAA League

Posted

[caption id="attachment_6849" align="alignright" width="229" caption="Germantown Academy graduate Kris Guynn looks for an inside cutter during an NCAA League outing. (Photo by Tom Utescher)"][/caption]

by Tom Utescher

There was some local interest on each side of an important early-season clash in the Philly NCAA League last Tuesday, as defending league champion Kelly Green dug itself a deep hole early and couldn’t come back all the way against the Teal team, which won 75-65.

Mount St. Joe grad Sarah McGorry scored six points in the losing cause. Another former Mountie, Elle Hagedorn, has not yet returned from a foreign study program in Italy to join the team, which is coached by her father, Ted. The victorious Teal team received five points from Germantown Academy alumna Kris Guynn.

Her younger sister, Nikki, who graduated from Penn Charter last year, was in action in an earlier game the same night. She also put up five points for her ballclub, but she experienced the opposite outcome as her Purple team lost by 10 points to the Black squad, 61-51.

Another former Girls Inter-Ac player didn’t have any better luck last Tuesday. Jesse Carey, an erstwhile Germantown Academy guard now playing at Villanova, scored nine points for the evening, but her White team got squeezed by the Orange, 68-54, after trailing by just two points at halftime.

Going back to the main event, Kris Guynn put away the opening basket of the Teal – Kelly Green battle, converting off of an offensive rebound. A little latter the onetime GA Patriot canned a three-pointer from the left wing, helping her club fire out to a 19-3 lead.

Neither team was at full strength for the encounter, but there was still plenty of talent on the floor. It’s always entertaining to watch Ashley Morris, a diminutive but explosive guard who attended Central High School and went on to play at Temple University. She would lead all scorers in Tuesday’s game, ringing up 31 points for the victors.

Another former Temple guard on the Teal team is Cheltenham High School grad Stacey Smalls. Balancing the offense on the inside was forward Michelle Maslowski, a former Drexel University star who is playing professional basketball in Europe.

Hitting a lay-up and then two midrange jumpers, former Mountie McGorry contributed to a rally by the Kelly Green team in the middle of the opening half. The tally was 31-24 with a minute to go, but Teal pushed its lead back into double digits for halftime, at 37-25.

Small forward Kelly Peterson, a future teammate of Mount grad Mary Jo Horgan at Lehigh University, scored all of her 18 points in the second half to lead a Kelly Green comeback. Her three-pointer with 5:30 remaining moved Kelly Green ahead 57-55, but Teal quickly regained the lead. It was still close, 65-61, with under two minutes to go, then 10-for-12 free throw shooting down the stretch sealed a Teal victory.

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