City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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VILLANOVA — It was during an AAU tournament this past offseason that Penn Charter girls basketball coach Joe Maguire, watching one of his Quakers play, was approached by an unknown parent with a useful tidbit of information. Aditi Foster, a multi-sport athlete whose primary sport was lacrosse, was transferring from Upper Dublin to Penn Charter for her junior year.

Though the move was lacrosse-related, the parent told Maguire “she’ll help you.” That’s no small thing, considering Maguire’s girls were Inter-Ac champions a year ago, one of the favorites this fall, with no fewer than four future Division I basketball players in the rotation.

Whoever they were, they were right.

Foster’s become a key reserve for the Quakers, taking what makes her a standout on the lacrosse field — with schools from the Ivy League, Big Ten and ACC showing interest — and putting it to work as a defensive specialist for Penn Charter. The 5-foot-6 guard is a defensive pest and energetic part of the Penn Charter full-court press, from the moment she’s called upon until her shift is done.

“It’s so similar with lacrosse, like all the movements and stuff, all the dodges,” she said. “I find it easy to correlate that, and I think the athleticism part, they’re just so similar.”

“She’s a gamer, is what we like to say,” Maguire said. “She shows up in games and she makes plays in games, there’s times I don’t even know if she scores or whatever but she’s a high-IQ, high-intensity, high-effort, good character person, which is really nice for us to have that luxury coming off the bench.

“She doesn’t care about scoring or any of that stuff, she wants to help the team win in any way she can.”

Foster was part of an impressive defensive showing by Penn Charter in an Inter-Academic League road game at Notre Dame on Friday, coming up with three steals as the Quakers’ press turned the the Irish over and over, helping them overcome a rough night offensively and come away with a 51-43 win to establish themselves alone atop the Inter-Ac.

Penn Charter (6-6, 4-0 Inter-Ac) forced 26 turnovers, coming up with 14 steals as a team, preventing Notre Dame (6-7, 3-1) from finding much of an offensive rhythm. Joining Foster with three steals were senior guard Gracie Shoup, senior wing Aleah Snead and sophomore guard Kaylinn Bethea, while senior Bella Toomey and eighth grader Ryan Carter had one apiece.

The Quakers utilized a full-court press at every opportunity but also took advantage of some half-court traps, doing whatever they could to disrupt the Irish offense. 

“That’s what we want to do, we want to pressure the ball,” Maguire said. “We wanted to make them have to make plays and pressure the ball and we have athletes who can get in passing lanes and we have athletes who can pressure the ball, so we wanted to force the tempo and force them, have to make quick decisions and try to have to figure things out on the fly as opposed to coming up and letting them call a play and run their play.”

Lizzie Halligan (above) had 18 points to lead Notre Dame. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

When Notre Dame did get set up, the Irish were powered by Katie Halligan and Lizzie Halligan, the sisters combining for 29 points. Lizzie, a junior wing guard, scored 18, including a pair of fourth-quarter 3-pointers, with nine rebounds and four steals; Katie, a senior forward, finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds, with two assists and a steal.

But that wasn’t enough to counter the Quakers’ stars. Snead, a 6-0 wing and St. Joe’s pledge, finished with 13 points, including a key one-and-one with 45 seconds left to keep PC up by seven, plus four rebounds; Toomey, a 6-1 forward bound for Fairleigh Dickinson, added 12 points and five rebounds; Bethea, a 5-10 sophomore guard and D-I recruit herself, had 11 points and five rebounds.

Foster, who referred to herself as “not much of a shooter,” knocked down one from deep and finished with five points and four rebounds in addition to her three steals.

She's already got plenty of chemistry with her teammates, with help from Shoup, who plays for the same club lacrosse team (HHH) during the summer.

"I think it was really easy for me to fit in here," she said. "It was nice to know Gracie coming in here, she helped me fit in and then I’m just really good friends with everyone."

The Quakers left plenty of points on the floor, going 16-of-47 (34%) and turning it over 15 times of their own; they were also 15-of-25 from the foul line.

The preseason favorites in the Inter-Ac, coming off a 20-win season and run to the PAISAA championship game, the Quakers are now the in-season favorites too, with road wins at Notre Dame, Episcopal Academy and Germantown Academy, their three most likely contenders in the seven-team private school league. 

There are still eight Inter-Ac games left to be played and a healthy amount of non-league games mixed in, including against Imhotep, Carroll, Wood and a game in the Maggie Lucas Classic later this month, so things are far from a wrap for the Quakers. But Friday was a meaningful step in the right direction, as both a tally in the win column and a reminder that nothing is given.

“We’ve talked about all teams have to do is beat us once,” Maguire said. “There’s no playoffs, it’s [only] the record and all they have to do is beat us one time; it’s not a seven game series, it’s beat us one time. So we got away with a win, which is good.”

By Quarter
Penn Charter:  12  |  14  |   9   |  16  ||  51
Notre Dame:    11  |  13  |   5   |  14  ||  43

Shooting
Penn Charter: 16-47 FG (4-12 3PT), 15-25 FT
Notre Dame: 13-38 FG (2-11 3PT), 15-21 FT

Scoring
Penn Charter: Snead 13, Toomey 12, Bethea 11, Carter 8, Foster 5, Shoup 2
Notre Dame: L. Halligan 18, K. Halligan 11, Knox 9, Hall 2, Greek 2, Kelly 1