City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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WYNDMOOR -- The winning playlist started with the Queen classic, “We Are The Champions.” It moved on with the more modern staple, DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win.”

But it wasn’t until “Let it Shine,” from the Disney Channel original movie of the same name, came on that the Villa Maria girls really let loose. Singing along at the top of their lungs, the words filling the hallways of La Salle College High School in a harmony that would make some high schools choirs jealous:

It's been a long road but we're finally here
And the view from the top so beautifully clear
We can see for forever, not a cloud in the sky
Picture perfect weather everyday of our lives
Just imagine if everything you wanted came true
Well it happened to me so it can happen to you

The Hurricanes have sung that song before every game for the last four years, senior wing Ella Iacone said, but never had it sounded so good. Villa Maria had plenty to celebrate after taking down archrival Gwynedd Mercy, 55-32, to capture the Athletic Association of Catholic Academies (AACA) championship on Tuesday.

That ended an 11-year drought of league postseason titles for Villa Maria and longtime head coach Kathy McCartney, known affectionately to her players as ‘McCart,’ who’s won 12 district titles and even more league championships in her 30-plus years at the all-girls Catholic school in Malvern.

“I’ve been watching Villa basketball for the past six years,” said Iacone, whose older sister Faith played for Villa before graduating in 2020, “and to see that we finally won this, it’s awesome, it’s an amazing feeling.

“McCart was like, ‘you guys bring out everything you got, leave it on the floor, [we’re] going to win it or [we’re] not.’ It’s awesome that we won it. Gwynedd’s a great team, I’m glad we really pulled that one out.”

Just two weeks after it took a Marah McHugh buzzer-beating 3-pointer in overtime for Villa to beat Gwynedd and wrap up the regular-season championship, the Hurricanes stormed over their rivals. 

Senior Elaine Guerzon shot a perfect 6-of-6 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from 3-point range, to finish as the only Villa player in double figures with 15 points. The Villa point guard added in four rebounds, three assists and three steals, leading a full-team effort that saw nine different Hurricanes players in the scoring column as they beat their rivals for the third time this season.

“We’re all happy, we worked hard for this, we’re all excited,” Guerzon said. “We haven’t beat Gwynedd this many times in a season [over the last four years], so we’re all excited.”

“She’s been under duress all year, she’s our best ball-handler, she’s in there all the time, it was great for her to have the success she had today,” McCartney said, and there was a smile on her face when she added “she could do that every game, she set the bar for herself — I’m going to be on her more in practice.”

Iacone added nine points, including a pair of three-pointers, all in the second half, with four assists and two rebounds; McHugh and classmate Clare Cronley added seven each, while Ava Irvine — the fifth member of the starting lineup and another senior — had six more. The reserves — juniors Alice Nash, Emma O’Hare and Carly Catania and freshman Sophia Tray — chipped in another 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting (3-4 FT), McCartney going nine deep in her main rotation before emptying the bench with three minutes to play.

That balance has been something the Hurricanes have used to their advantage all year long, the pieces McCartney deploys around Guerzon almost all interchangeable, plugging into their offensive and defensive schemes in multiple ways, various different girls stepping up and leading them in scoring at different points in the year, both from the starters and off the bench.

“It’s great, you know, everyone has someone to contribute to the team,” Guerzon said. “It’s not just one of us, it’s all of us.”

“Anyone who comes in, they’re going to do their job and they’re going to play great and we have to just believe in everyone, we’re going to be there for each other,” Iacone added. “No one’s going to get mad about playing time, we’re an unselfish team, and that’s something that’s going to help us in the future.”

Altogether, the Hurricanes shot 21-of-37 (56.7%) from the floor and 5-of-11 from 3-point range, while holding the Monarchs to 13-of-41 (31.7%), a strong two-way performance that McCartney couldn’t find much fault in.

“I think we controlled the tempo, which we didn’t do when we played at our place,” she said. “They didn’t slow us down, we scored in transition, I thought our defense was really, really good today. Just all-around a great win.

“Did we play perfectly? No. Are we ever going to? No But the effort was there, they played with each other well, they executed the game plan exactly the way we asked them to. As a coach, you can’t ask for more than that.”

It was close early on, Villa holding an 11-9 lead over Gwynedd after one quarter; the Hurricanes clamped down defensively in the second, holding the Monarchs to just three points as they took a 19-12 lead into the half. 

Guerzon came out in the third and knocked down a triple, Iacone following with a floater and they had Gwynedd’s score doubled, 24-12. By the end of the quarter, Iacone connecting on her first triple and Catania on two buckets, the lead was 37-21. 

Gwynedd Mercy (19-4) briefly got within 12 in the fourth quarter on a three-pointer by Morgan Newell (8 points) and a couple buckets by senior point guard Hannah Griffin (11 points), close enough that one or two more buckets could have sent a deluge going their way. But Guerzon connected on her third and final 3-pointer, Cronley adding her two buckets, Iacone another triple, and it was a 20-point lead with five minutes remaining, the title all but in hand.

A year ago, a somewhat-young Villa squad made a surprise run to the District 1 5A championship as the No. 10 seed after a 10-11 regular season, winning the championship over Bishop Shanahan, though they lost in the first round of the PIAA 5A tournament. They’ve ridden that momentum to a 21-3 record after Tuesday’s win, with the AACA regular-season and postseason titles, and the No. 3 seed in the District 1 5A tournament this year. 

“It was definitely the springboard to some good success this year, for sure,” McCartney said. “For sure. I think they gained a lot of confidence [...] we struggled in the middle of the year last year and we lost some games in the middle, and we learned a lot from that, and I think that got us into the districts and now into this year.”

Villa will face either Radnor or Phoenixville in the quarterfinal on Feb. 21 (Tuesday), just one win away from making it back to the state tournament, and three from defending its district crown. WIth all the upperclassmen in the rotation this year, they plan on extending their postseason even deeper into March.

“We’re not finished yet,” Guerzon said. “[We’ll get more practice, fix our errors and stuff. Hopefully we can make a long run again.”

By Quarter
VMA:   11  |   8   |  18  |  18  ||  55
GMA:   9   |   3   |   9   |  11  ||  32

Shooting
VMA: 21-37 FG (5-11 3PT), 8-12 FT
GMA: 13-41 FG (3-18 3PT), 3-8 FT

Scoring
VMA: Elaina Guerzon 15, Ella Iacone 9, Marah McHugh 7, Clare Cronley 7, Ava Irvine 6, Carly Catania 4, Alice Nash 4, Carly Catania 2, Sophia Tray 2, Emma O’Hare 1

GMA: Hannah Griffin 11, Morgan Newell 8, Bailey Balkir 6, Cara Lapp 4, Lauren Drakeley 2, Dylan Burke 1