March 22, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mount hoopsters make state Final 4
by TOM UTESCHER

Scoring two game-winning free throws and 11 of the Mount’s last 13 points in a quarterfinal upset of Nanticoke High School, junior guard Laura Johnson put up a game-high 22 points for the Magic. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)For more photos visit www.chlocalphotos.com

Although junior Laura Johnson is one of Mount St. Joseph Academy’s best free throw shooters, her father, Lanny, has developed a superstitious habit of covering his eyes when the slender 5’8” guard squares up at the foul line.

Knowing that, you’d assume that he would’ve had his eyelids clamped down tight when his daughter stepped to the stripe last Saturday with 2.2 seconds left in a 48-48 state quarterfinal game. Not this time.

“Today I looked,” stated Johnson. “I knew she would make them.”

Fouled on a missed shot in the lane, the younger Johnson waited through a time-out called by Greater Nanticoke Area High School, then guided in both free throws without grazing the rim. After a desperation shot by their rivals from Wilkes Barre, the Magic rejoiced in a 50-48 victory that moved them into the final four of the PIAA Class AAA tournament.

As the Mount ran its record to 28-2, a game-high 22 points by Johnson (four assists) were complemented by 14 points from junior forward Sarah McGorry (seven rebounds), and eight from sophomore forward Elle Hagedorn (six rebounds, five steals).

Coming in, the Nanticoke Trojanettes had been 29-0 and were ranked second in Class AAA in a leading state poll. The District II champions were paced by their 6’4” center, St. Joseph’s University recruit Sarah Acker, who posted 21 points, 10 rebounds, and seven blocked shots.

The Mount, which participated in Class AAAA up until this year, had never before reached the semifinals in the state playoffs. Johnson’s older sister Emily had been a sophomore starter on the 2003 Magic team that ended its run in the Quad-A quarterfinal round.

In a semifinal game this Wednesday, Mount St. Joe will take on its league archrival, Villa Maria Academy (6:00 PM at Norristown H.S.), whom the Magic have beaten three times in their four previous encounters this season. The last meeting occurred on March 3, when the Magic eked out a 51-48 win in the District I championship game.

The Mount earned its place in last weekend’s quarterfinal by winning a round-of-16 game three days earlier. For that contest, the Magic traveled to Coatesville High School, playing in the same gym where their 2005-2006 season ended (against Coatesville itself) in the first round of the Class AAAA District I tournament. The opponents this time would be the Lady Pioneers of Lancaster County’s Lampeter-Strasburg High School, the fourth seed from District III and owners of a 21-10 record.

On a day when the temperature flirted with the 80-degree mark, the folks at Coatesville opened up all the doors and windows a little too late.

“It was unbelievable how hot it was,” remarked Mount St. Joe’s Johnson. “During the game, we were all just covered with sweat.”

The contest quickly developed into a game of runs. The Magic jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the first three minutes, then the Pioneers got over their stage fright and outscored the Mounties 20-7 during the next seven minutes for a 20-15 lead.

Aside from one three-pointer, Lampeter-Strasburg (or “LS,” as their fans chanted) did most of its scoring on the inside, on drives and rebound conversions by agile guards Danielle Rittenhouse and Lisa Boyer, and on some short jumpers deftly executed by center Renee Fritz.

Three-pointers by Johnson and Jen Sabia revived the Mount, and Johnson then scored a lay-up off of a steal. The Magic, who’d had a 10-9 edge at

the end of the first quarter, were back in front for halftime, 28-26.

By the middle of the third quarter, two more field goals by Fritz had helped LS retake the lead, 35-32.

MSJ’s McGorry, the primary defender on the Pioneers’ pivot, said, “Coach [John] Miller told me to deny her the ball, and I was able to start doing that and not let her catch it.”

Fritz would not score during the last 12 minutes, and McGorry, Hagedorn and Sabia combined to shoot six-for-six from the foul line late in the third quarter, which ended with the Mount on top, 40-37.

“We definitely turned up our defensive intensity,” Johnson said. “They stopped scoring and we started getting fast break opportunities. We did a better job taking care of the ball, too.”

Hagedorn felt that Mount St. Joe’s has benefited from its come-from-behind victories in the league and district playoffs.

“It gives us the confidence to know that if we’re down we can come back, because we’ve done it before,” she said. “We just find that extra energy to keep going.”

Sabia, who had seven assists in the game, was making precise entry passes for the Magic. They started the fourth frame with three straight lay-ups by McGorry, one of them off a rebound. It was the beginning of an 11-3 run that sent the lead into double digits for the first time, at 51-40 with three-and-a-half minutes to go.

During the spree, Hagedorn flew around the court to collect two steals and a defensive rebound, and two more missed shots by the Pioneers were rebounded by McGorry. With 1:51 to go, the Magic got into the bonus, and seven-for-nine foulshooting helped them seal the victory.

The Mount got double-digit scoring from McGorry (19 points, 11 rebounds), Hagedorn (15 points, 11 rebounds) and Sabia (11 points), while Johnson and Ryann Gallagher had eight and five points, respectively. The Pioneers

received 12 points from Boyer, 10 from Rittenhouse (seven rebounds) and eight from Fritz (five rebounds, three blocks).

“I thought they were coming up with a lot of ‘hustle’ plays in the first half,” Miller remarked. “Our girls played with a lot more intensity in the second half both defensively and in getting rebounds, which was important. I thought it was pretty evident we really wore them down.”

That contest set the Mount up for their meeting with the undefeated Trojanettes, in a quarterfinal game played at Bethlehem’s Freedom High School. In addition to the imposing Acker, Nanticoke boasted a prolific six-foot wing player in Aly Byorick. A senior bound for Xavier University, Byorick had rung up more than 2500 points during her high school career. Both Trojanette standouts play for AAU club teams in this area, Byorick with the Philadelphia Belles, and Acker with Fencor.

After sustaining a foot injury in the District II tournament, Byorick saw very limited action in the Trojanettes’ state opener, but played 25 minutes during their second-round tilt. However, not long into Saturday’s game, it was plain that the injury was bothering her.

“The doctors got her back to play for us, but she was probably only about 70-percent,” said Nanticoke coach Jack Rentko. “She really couldn’t push off [the foot], and Johnson played great defense on her. Aly couldn’t get away from her because she’d lost her quickness.”

A flu bug had made the rounds on the Mount team earlier in the month, but for the most part the locals were in the pink for Saturday’s game.

Nanticoke’s Rentko was not impressed with the way his club started out, observing, “We had no swagger. They took it right to us. They beat us to every loose ball and they were more physical than we were. We were lucky we were only down ten at the half.”

The Magic usually don’t bolt out of the gate, but they were ready to race at the start of this game.

“We came out strong,” Johnson agreed. “We hit shots, we got rebounds, we had a bunch of steals. I think that gave us a big confidence boost, and it got Nanticoke a little nervous.”

Inside, MSJ’s McGorry, at six feet even, outscored Acker 10-6 in the first half, and Johnson’s jumpers (including one three-pointer) netted her 11 points by the break as the Magic expanded upon a 16-11 lead at the quarter. Gallagher and Hagedorn each hit a pair of field goals during the first two frames, as the Magic forced ten turnovers from the Trojanettes and freewheeled down the floor.

On a baseline “J” by Sabia with 42 seconds remaining, the Mount’s lead reached its zenith at 13 points, then Leigh Ann Rentko (the Nanticoke coach’s daughter) banked in a 25-foot buzzer-beater to set the halftime score at 31-21.

“We wanted to run,” said MSJ’s Miller. “We wanted to push the ball and tire them out. Even in the halfcourt, we were running our motion offense to make Nanticoke work all the time.”

On defense, McGorry stayed between Acker and the basket, and whenever she could, Hagedorn dropped in to help out on the Nanticoke oak.

“We knew we couldn’t play her one-on-one,” Miller said. “We told Sarah not to try and block her shot and not to think about getting the rebound – just box Acker out and keep her from getting the rebound.”

The third quarter was a 10-10 standoff that raised the score to 41-31, but it was disturbing for Mount fans to see Acker come alive to bag four lay-ups, several of them on feeds along the baseline from guard Lauren Dembrowski. Becoming more concerned with Dembrowski’s entry passes than the outside scoring threat she posed, the Magic backed off a bit, and early in the fourth quarter the Trojanette senior stuck back-to-back three-pointers, making it a four-point affair (41-37) with five minutes to go.

At the close of the third quarter, the Magic had connected on just one of their last six shots (a McGorry lay-up), and over the first three minutes of the final stanza, the Mount lost the ball out-of-bounds twice, committed a third turnover on a walking call, missed one field goal attempt and had another snuffed by Acker.

“Then I just started calling different plays for Laura,” Miller related.

Two lay-ups by the MSJ junior were sandwiched around a drive by Renkto and a pair of Acker free throws as the scored seesawed up to 45-41. After scoring off a pass from Byorick, Acker rebounded a Mount miss and tossed the ball up the court to assist a transition lay-up by Jen Harnischfeger that leveled the score at 45-all with 1:48 to go.

Coach Rentko commented, “As bad as we’d played – as bad as they’d made us play – I thought when we tied it up it was our game. We came out tougher in the second half, and I thought we bodied them up the way they’d done to us in the first half.”

The Magic went back in front when Johnson arced in a trey from near the top of the key, then with 53.8 seconds to go Acker evened it up with a traditional three-point play. She scored off a rebound while drawing McGorry’s third foul of the afternoon (and the Mount’s seventh of the half) and converted the free throw for a 48-48 deadlock.

Running the clock down in its halfcourt offense, the Mount tried to set up a play as the clock dropped from 15 to 10 seconds. Dogged defense by the Trojanettes foiled the plot, and seeing time grow short, Johnson took a handoff from Claire Kueny at the top of the key, drove into the lane, and hoisted a baby jumper. Her shot didn’t fall, but she’d been fouled by Byorick on the attempt. Nanticoke called a time-out and Johnson pondered her situation.

“I went to the sidelines and, surprisingly, I felt pretty calm,” she recalled. “I felt sort of numb, actually. I got to the line and I heard the fans yelling, but I didn’t focus on it.”

There was no rim-dancing drama on either shot; the ball just slipped through the net. After another time-out, Nanticoke got within eight feet of midcourt and chucked up a final shot that fell far short of the mark.

Only two MSJ players made it to the foul line all day, but they cashed in as McGorry went six-for-six and Johnson four-for-four. The Trojanettes made five of their eight free throws. Dembowski, who hit a three-pointer in the first quarter, came second to Acker on the Nanticoke scoresheet with nine points, but Byorick did not score from the floor and was held to two points from the line on a three-shot foul in the second quarter.

Last season, Nanticoke had been undefeated before losing to Oxford High School in the second round of States.

“The last two years we’ve been 29-1, 29-1,” observed an emotional Coach Rentko. “It’s tough to swallow.”