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Harrington, Hatboro-Horsham spoil Quakertown's playoff hopes

02/03/2023, 11:15pm EST
By Andrew Robinson

By Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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HORSHAM – Among the players on Hatboro-Horsham’s girls’ basketball team, Leah Harrington is the outlier.

While many of the Hatters call soccer, softball or another sport their primary pursuit, the senior guard is the rare basketball-only athlete and bears the responsibilities that come along with it. Wins haven’t come as readily as the team would have liked this year, but playing with some of her best friends for the last time keeps Harrington going.

Harrington came through when it counted, helping Hatboro-Horsham get some payback on Quakertown while dealing a significant dent to the Panthers’ playoff hopes in Friday’s 38-32 SOL Liberty win.

“It was super-big for us, we needed something like this,” Harrington said. “It’s been a hard week, so having everyone fight back was really good to see.”


Hatboro-Horsham senior Leah Harrington had some clutch buckets in a win over Quakertown. (Photo: Andrew Robinson/CoBL)

The 5-foot-6 senior has been mired in a shooting slump of late, scoring just a single point in Thursday night’s loss at Great Valley. Friday, Harrington only hit two shots but finished eight points in total and had one of the game’s key baskets on a baseline take in the fourth quarter that put the Hatters ahead 31-26 then two big foul shots for a 34-28 edge with 1:47 to go.

Last season, the Hatters were able to experience a postseason game when they qualified for the District 1 6A playoffs as the No. 19 seed but now at 8-13, Harrington knows her high school career will end next week. Still, even as the most basketball-focused player on a team full of athletes, it was important for the senior to stay with her hometown program.

“I’ve played pretty much my whole life with these girls and that’s what keeps it fun,” Harrington said. “There are hard times, but we really work well together and I wouldn’t want to trade it for the world.”

Hatters coach Eric Glemser lauded Harrington for always pushing through even when it gets frustrating. The second-year coach admitted he put a lot on Harrington this season and even though the senior guard is her own harshest critic, she always bounced back ready to go again.

“She’s a basketball player, I want the ball in her hands at the end of a game,” Glemser said. “I talked to her before the game. I said, ‘I know you’re frustrated and upset at one point last night and you know all these teams are going to try to stop you.’ I thought she played a nice game.”

Hatboro-Horsham hasn’t produced college basketball players at the rate of some other programs in the SOL, but did send Alice Hall to MIT last year. They’ll have another one going to the next level in Harrington, who committed to nearby Gwynedd Mercy University on Jan. 26.

Harrington wasn’t initially sure she wanted to go on to the college level, but working out with former Hatters assistant and now first-year Gwynedd Mercy University assistant Taylor Sweeney helped change her mind. The guard said it certainly helped having a familiar face now on staff at her future home, but she also wanted a school she’d be comfortable at if Sweeney moved on to another position while she was still there.

“I started talking to them about a year and a half ago, but I wasn’t so sure,” Harrington said. “My coach, Taylor, she showed me I could do it and I’d always had a passion for it so I really wanted to.

“I just felt like I wasn’t finished with what I wanted to show everyone, I just want to continue to play this sport I’ve always loved.”

Glemser, a former Gwynedd Mercy assistant, was happy to see Harrington decide to keep playing. She may not be a top scorer at the next level, but she brings a lot of the intangibles that help a team.

“She’s a great Division III player, I like to say she’s a program type of kid,” Glemser said. “She’s going to give you everything she has. She’s maybe not going to light it up in every category but you can tell she’s pretty steady.

“She’s always on the floor, always getting hit. She may not always get the call, which wears on her mentally but she always keeps her head.”

Harrington isn’t the only athlete in her family — her younger sister Paige currently competes as a Level 8 gymnast — and while their sports don’t overlap, they’re pretty competitive. She credited her sister, her parents and the coaches she’s had at Hatboro-Horsham and in AAU playing for Fencor and Rebels Basketball Academy for being the ones to pull her back when she starts to feel frustrated.

“I doubt myself a lot but they push me to the best of my ability,” Harrington said.

Asked what she’d like any of the team’s underclassmen or players coming through the Hatboro-Horsham school district to take away from her path with the Hatters to college basketball, Harrington had a fitting answer.

“I wanted to show them that, just work hard because anyone can do it,” Harrington said. “If you love a sport, you can do it. Have fun, that’s the biggest thing, and always work hard.”

Most of her teammates aren’t primarily basketball players, but they’ve been together for a long time. With their finale coming up Tuesday, Harrington is hoping she can lead them to one more win to call it a career.

“I want to leave it all out on the floor and have fun with my girls one last time,” Harrington said.

HATBORO-HORSHAM 38, QUAKERTOWN 32

Last time these teams met, Quakertown’s Carolyn Sipprell dominated.

The Panthers’ 6-foot-1 guard/forward — who recently became the first Quakertown girls’ player in more than a decade to score 1,000 points — had a monster double-double in a one-sided win. Friday, it seemed like she was off to another one with seven first quarter points with Quakertown, which entered the day No 25 in the District 1 6A rankings, needing the win and likely some help to get to the postseason.

Then, the Hatters buckled down, committed to slowing down Sipprell and point guard Katie Catalano and got to play spoiler.

“We were just looking to get back at them after losing pretty badly earlier in the season,” Harrington said. “We wanted to show we were capable of playing better.”

The key to slowing Sipprell was junior Kitty Randa. Randa, a 6-foot junior, had a breakout season in the fall playing soccer and carried into the winter despite this being just her second year playing organized basketball.

Randa had 10 points, 11 rebounds, a block and helped hold Sipprell without a field goal over the final three quarters. With the Hatters also keeping a close eye on Catalano, the rest of them flew around the court looking to be disruptors.

“We did a tandem defense, then the rest just played their area and in the paint,” Harrington said. “We do well in that, but sometimes lack that aggressiveness so having one person who goes out and does it, we all feed off that.”

Friday, that was Ali Hewish. The senior was a bundle of energy with six steals and had the go-ahead basket on a runout layup with 7:13 to play in the fourth quarter.

Sipprell did end the game with 12 points, 11 rebounds, two assists and two steals while Kayla Sicher also had 12 for the Panthers.

Randa came through again in the final seconds. The junior was sent to the line with 16.6 on the clock, hitting her first before missing the second only to grab the offensive board, get fouled again and sink both freebies for the final margin.

“We’ve had a lot of players out recently,” Glemser said. “We needed that.”

By Quarter

HATBORO-HORSHAM 8 | 5 | 9 | 16 || 38

QUAKERTOWN 13 | 5 | 7 | 7 || 32

Scoring

HH: Kitty Randa 10, Ali Hewish 8, Leah Harrington 8, Abby Waeltz 4, Caroline Shegogue 2, Maddy Patel 2, Alyssa Tooley 1

Q: Carolyn Sipprell 12, Kayla Sicher 12, Addyson Davis 4, Carli Maha 3, Ava Pistone 1


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