On consecutive days, three girls' basketball teams from the area won their final games before the holiday hiatus.

On Thursday, December 19, Penn Charter traveled to Newtown to take on George School. Going up by double digits in the first quarter, the Quakers came home with a 61-39 victory. In the closest contest of the three, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy outlasted visiting Julia R. Masterman School on Friday, 35-29. On Saturday, host Mount St. Joseph Academy led from wire to wire as the Magic dispatched Penncrest High School, 48-20.

At George School, Penn Charter (4-1) had St. Joseph's-bound senior guard Kaylinn Bethea start things off by making a transition lay-up and a free throw that came along with it. Junior Marleigh Jackson bagged a three-point field goal from the left wing, and when Bethea was fouled and put in two more free throws, Charter was up 8-0 just over 90 seconds into the game.

Later on, a trey from the right flank by sophomore Logan Lloyd gave the Quakers a double-digit lead at 13-2. It was 18-6 at the quarter, and although the second quarter scoring was not at lopsided, PC was still ahead 32-18 at halftime and the Cougars were never able to make a serious run at the lead.

The Quakers had played without a regular starter, sophomore guard Mia DiBenedetto, who was attending a lacrosse event.

Bethea scored a game-high 27 points in the contest, and Jackson came away with 19. Rounding out the scoring for the visitors were junior Molly Dougherty, with seven points, Lloyd, with six, and freshman Aubrei Smith, with two. For George School, sophomore Maya Ravindranathan scored a team-high 10 points while Vieira, the former Quaker, was one of three players who scored eight points for the hosts.

The following afternoon, Springside Chestnut Hill (4-4) hosted the Blue Dragons of Masterman. SCH took the court without junior Pia Swamy, and Masterman was missing a starter of its own.

However, the visitors did have 6'2" senior Jocelyn Goldstein, who had reached the 1000-point career scoring milestone faster than any other player in Philadelphia Public League history. She will play for Johns Hopkins University, where Germantown Friends alumna Katherine Bixby coached the team for six seasons before departing in 2023. Bixby is now an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina.

Scoring from three-point range as well as in the post, Goldstein rang up nine points in the first quarter to lead Masterman to a 13-8 lead. SCH sophomore Ella Thomson was able to score twice off of offensive rebounds.

Although the Blue Devils shut out Goldstein in the second quarter, the visitors were able to expand their lead to seven points (17-10) with under three minutes left in the first half. SCH was able to erase most of that deficit before the intermission, with junior Flo Ajunwa and freshman Mimi Gallagher converting off of offensive rebounds before Thomson scored off a steal to make it 17-16.

Kendall Schnee, Springside's sophomore shooting guard, would post all of her team-high 12 points in the second half. She notched two three-pointers, a shorter jump shot, and a free throw in the third frame, and once again SCH ended the quarter with Thomson stealing the ball and scoring a breakaway bucket.

The hosts were ahead 29-26 at the three-quarter mark, and that figure stayed on the scoreboard for almost five minutes in the fourth round. Schnee finally got the numbers clicking over again with her third trey of the afternoon, striking from the left win with 3:06 remaining in the game.

With just over a minute-and-a-half remaining. Masterman's Madeline Quinn made the first of two free throws, and Goldstein rebounded the missed second shot and scored to make it a three-point affair once again at 32-29.

The Blue Dragons would not score after that, however, missing a pair of free throws and also a fast break lay-up off of a steal.

With 18 ticks left Ajunwa made the first of two foul shots. When she missed the second, one player from each team grappled for the rebound but lost hold of the ball. Instead, Ajunwa grabbed the loose ball and made a lay-up that set the final score at 35-29.

Ajunwa came away with 11 points for the victors, while Thomson had 10 and Gallagher scored two. Goldstein netted a game-high 20 points in the losing cause.

On Saturday, the Penncrest Lions arrived at Mount St. Joe's with a higher power ranking than the Magic in PIAA District One's Class 5A. As was demonstrated on the court, you can't put too much stock in these early standings.

After junior Bridget Horgan put in a short jumper and senior Audrey Rocks bagged two free throws at the outset, the Magic (3-4) led the rest of the way. Freshman Caitlin Cavallaro led all scorers at the half with seven points, hitting a three-pointer, a 10-foot jumper and a breakaway basket assisted by Rocks.

Junior guard Morgan Cross scored on a drive in the first quarter to help the Mounties win the period, 11-4, and later she capped off the second quarter with a three-pointer from the left corner that had the hosts ahead 21-7 at the intermission.

Cross was just getting started, though. After depositing two more treys and a shorter field goal earlier in the third frame, she ended the quarter with a buzzer-beating heave that spread the score out to 38-13.

Mount St. Joseph emptied the bench entirely in the fourth round (at one point there were five freshmen on the floor together) but still outscored the Lions, 10-7.

Cross registered a game-high 16 points while Cavallaro had eight and Rocks scored seven. The Magic received four points apiece from Horgan, Katie Eichenhofer, and Delaney O'Brien, two each from Charlotte McDaid and Nina Meierdiercks, and one from Caroline Dougherty.