Springside cruises to summer hoops victory

by TOM UTESCHER

For the first time since the mid-1990's Springside School has established a summer basketball presence, playing in the Upper Gwynedd League in North Wales.

The roster is an amalgam of actual Springside students and other players from the Renegades AAU club program, which is run by the Lions’ new basketball coach, Steve Flynn. Most of the participants are ninth and tenth graders (a few are even younger) and are presided over by Flynn and his AAU colleague Monte Pool.

Play began in the league after the July 4 weekend, but because the action takes place on outdoor courts, thus far about half of the scheduled contests have been postponed due to rain.

Last Wednesday night Springside, officially listed as Team Six, built up a big lead early on and never looked back on the way to a 49-34 win over Team Four, another multi-affiliated ballclub that included Mount St. Joseph Academy players Megan Furey, Kate Hagedorn, and Kerri Roman.

Right from the outset, Springside’s Brie Katzraner, Joelle DiCarlo, Lauren Peters and Susan Birely all penetrated to the hoop to score, far outweighing a lone jumper by Team Four’s Rachel Collier. The Team Sixers went ahead 15-2 before their rivals hit another field goal. Amanda Walker, who’s going into eighth grade at Springside, deposited a pair of free throws and then drove in for a lay-up, and Peters put in a pair of field goals in the closing moments to spread the score to 28-11 for halftime.

Brittany Cornish popped in an eight-footer for Team Four in the early minutes of the second half, but the Springside squad had Katzraner can back-to-back three-pointers and then convert a traditional three-point play with a lay-up and free throw. Team Four was never able to get back in contention after that.

Katzraner rang up 16 points and DiCarlo scored 11 to lead Springside, which also got eight points from Peters. MSJ’s Hagedorn and Furey tabbed five and four points, respectively, for Team Four.