City of Basketball Love

Rob Rose (@RobRoseSports)
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The chant that emerged from the Cardinal O’Hara student section with 10 seconds left on the clock Tuesday night described exactly what the Lions felt.

It was really just one word, a place that despite being less than 10 miles from the school has seemed so distant to the senior class that doubt crept in if they would ever get a chance to play there.

“Palestra! Palestra! Palestra!,” the students shouted as smiles sprang onto the faces of the Lions on the court as they dribbled away the last seconds that separated seniors Maggie Doogan, Annie Welde and Sydni Scott from the a second straight PCL championship game and first trip to Philadelphia’s famous hoops facility after a 55-48 win over Archbishop Wood.

“It's our senior year, me Annie and Syd, we all have a common goal,” Doogan said. “We've been playing together for four years now. We've played so many games, so you kind of feed off of each other's energy and we're really excited to get a chance to play at The Palestra.”

Doogan was so intent on achieving her goal of reaching the PCL title game that she didn’t even know her final free throws in the fourth quarter put her at 1,000 for her career. The senior told her mom and head coach, Chrissie Doogan, that she didn’t want to know how close she was, so the only celebration that happened on the court was for the team’s success, just like Maggie Doogan wanted.

“She made me promise not to tell her if she was ever close,” Chrissie Doogan said. “She has one focus this year and that focus has been to get to The Palestra and give us a chance to win in the Catholic League Championship, so there was no reason to celebrate. We'll do something at practice or something on Thursday, but she wanted to win this game. My parents didn't know, her aunts didn’t know, they're gonna be mad at me. We didn't tell anybody, so it's a nice little surprise.”

What shouldn’t have been a surprise was that O’Hara won this game. Wood has ended the team’s playoff hopes each of the last three seasons and kept this senior class from winning a league title, so this special night meant even more.

The teams met in last year’s championship game which wasn’t held at the Palestra, but their  last showdown was won by the Lions by seven points in January. Chrissie Doogan said while that win was at their home court and would be different during this game it gave the Lions confidence they could get past a Vikings squad that continually crushed their championship aspirations.

(Read More: Carroll girls advance to PCL championship)

While seniors Maggie Doogan and Scott did a lot of the scoring with 17 and seven points, respectively, it was a freshman that fueled the Lions’ win.

Molly Rullo had a game-high 19 points, but impressed her fellow starters with how she played on defense. Rullo had the task of trying to slow down Wood senior and Vanderbilt commit Ryanne Allen because as Maggie Doogan said there’s no stopping Allen.

“I mean, coming in as a freshman and going up against Ryanne, that's pretty impressive,” Maggie Doogan said. “She's an amazing player and Molly stepped up huge tonight. She made open layups, she made foul shots and she locked her down. So I'm really proud of her.”

Locked down might be a bit much, but Rullo and O’Hara definitely made things hard for Allen. The senior still scored 18 points and the effort she gave while her teammates struggled to generate much offense was impressive.

After O’Hara increased its lead to eight headed into the fourth quarter, Allen answered with eight of her team’s 14 points as Wood tried to complete its comeback. The Vikings had the deficit down to three points, but couldn’t score enough and had to watch as the Lions walked up and down the court to hit the final free throws.

While they wanted to focus on the team’s win, the mother and daughter who double as coach and senior scorer shared a hug on the court as they celebrated all they had achieved together. Neither of them wanted to focus on the fact that Maggie Doogan had hit a major milestone on the same night that her senior class and coach/mom had finally overcome the opponent that for the past three years kept them from reaching their dream destination — The Palestra — but in that moment they did just that as the final two Lions to leave the floor.

“It's such a special feeling,” Maggie Doogan said. “She's been there for every big accomplishment that I've had, so her being here, not just for the win, but for my 1,000 is special.”

By Quarter
CO: 14 | 14 | 15 | 12 | 55
AW: 15 | 12 |  7 | 14 | 48

Scoring
CO: Molly Rullo 19, Maggie Doogan 17, Sydni Scott 7, Annie Welde 5, Bridget Dawson 5, Greta Miller 2.

AW: Ryanne Allen 18, Ava Renninger 9, Deja Evans 8, Allie Fleming 5, Delaney Finnegan 2, Emily Knouse 2, Kara Meredith 2, Bri Bowen 2.