City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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PHILADELPHIA – Olivia Boccella grew up watching Archbishop Wood play at the Palestra.

As a kid, her dad Kevin and her brothers would go to the PCL championships and usually see one of Wood’s teams competing in the girls’ title game. Thanks to her best game of the season, the next time Boccella goes to the Palestra, it will be as an active participant against the Vikings program she grew up watching from the bleachers.

Boccella’s blistering bombs-away shooting led to a game-high 20 points as the junior guard helped lead top seed LC past No. 4 Archbishop Carroll 53-39 and to its first-ever PCL title game on Tuesday.

“I watched so many Wood games at the Palestra and never thought in a million years I’d be playing there,” Boccella said. “It was like pure joy in the final seconds, I don’t think we even knew what we were feeling.”

As a freshman, Boccella entered into a Crusaders program that had Gabby Casey but had just lost its top two scorers from the season prior. The following season was rough, LC going just 2-11 but the tiny freshman showed she belonged with a prolific outside shooting ability while Casey emerged into her own as the program’s centerpiece.

Last season, the two were a core part of a breakout year for the Crusaders, one that ended in Hershey in a loss in the PIAA 4A title game to Wood. Of all the Crusaders, Boccella’s got the most history with Archbishop Wood, starting from those nights at the Palestra watching the Vikings to taking her share of tough losses to the Warminster school in basketball and soccer, where she is the keystone to LC’s defensive backline.

To get a chance to finally step on the Palestra court as a player and face Wood once again, Boccella and LC first had to get past a Patriots team that had them on the ropes in their last regular season league game. After five-plus scoreless minutes to start Tuesday’s game, it would be Boccella - on a three, of course - that finally got LC on the board.

“I was just trying to go one play at a time,” Boccella, her bravado as a shooter not always translating into her interviews, said. “I tried to play within the team, move the ball and my shots just luckily fell, thankfully.

“There were a little bit of nerves in the beginning, but we just had to keep it cool.”

Boccella had just five points at halftime, although she did hit a key three in LC’s 14-2 run that closed the second quarter. Statistically, it’s been a tough season at times for the guard with her numbers dipping due to a mix of opponents keying on her, teammates making a leap and new players coming into the program.

Instead of worrying, LC coach Eric Gidney was waiting for a game like Tuesday for the sharpshooter to break out. It wasn’t like the guard, who hit more than 60 threes last year, forgot how to shoot, it just hadn’t been her year to that point.

“It’s been long overdue,” Gidney said. “She hasn’t had quite the higher percentage she had last year, she might be at about half of that this year with probably close to the same attempts. If she wants to heat up now and again on Monday, that’s fine by me.”

Even when she didn’t make a shot on Tuesday, it still helped out. One of her few misses from behind the line — the junior shot 5-of-7 on 3’s — was a way-too-early halfcourt heave trying to beat the halftime buzzer that caromed off the backboard and to Jaida Helm, who managed to get off a three just in time for a 23-16 halftime edge.

Regardless of what season she’s in, Boccella is beloved by her teammates. Helm, a newcomer to LC this year, formed a quick friendship with the guard while her soccer teammates were locked in Tuesday, the team’s Twitter account posting ardently after each of her makes.

Informed of that, Boccella just laughed. Earlier this year, she and LC lost to Wood in the PCL girls’ soccer title game - the ninth straight loss she’d taken to a Vikings program before finally getting her first win in LC’s regular-season victory earlier this month.

“The soccer team is my family for sure but it’s not just my teams; the entire school has my back,” Boccella said. “They have our whole team’s back, it’s such a great community at our school and it feels so good to do it for them and hopefully bring back a PCL trophy.”

In the fall, Boccella’s job at center back is to deny the other team from scoring. She has to defend in basketball too, but her teammates want her scoring the ball like she did Tuesday.

Once the junior got going with a pair of threes in the third quarter, they certainly kept looking her way. Carroll wasn’t going anywhere either, with senior Taylor Wilson willing her team back into the game with seven straight points to open the third quarter and LC clung to a 34-30 leading going to the fourth.

An extra pass by Nadia Yemola found Boccella in the corner in front of the Crusader bench and she hit nothing but net for a seven-point lead that kicked off LC’s final punch. Boccella would hit another three from the opposite corner, added a traditional three-point play and capped her night with an open take to the rim off an outlet pass with two minutes left to reach the 20-point plateau.

“Liv’s just an amazing, all-around player. Her shooting was on fire today, it was really great just to see her start to hit some and get in her groove, that really pushed us and that was really the deciding factor in the third quarter,” Casey said. “After she started hitting some, it created opportunities for everybody else, so it was really key.”

Casey, who owns just about every scoring record the program has, had also only been to the Palestra as a fan. A few years back, she and fellow seniors Alana Ciccocelli and Cassidy Saulino made a pact after going to the PCL title game as spectators their freshman year.

The future St. Joe’s Hawk - who got a big congratulations from her future coach Cindy Griffin and assistant Katie Kuester after the game - hasn’t been overly boisterous about it but getting to the historic venue a few blocks over from where Tuesday’s game was held became a mission. With 18 points, punctuated with a dynamic move down the lane for her last basket and 12 rebounds, she delivered her team to some history of its own.

“It’s amazing, I think this honestly, it beats everything that we’ve ever wanted in this season at LC, and even states, this is just amazing, it’s been a dream ever since freshman year to play in the Palestra. Me, Alaina and a former player, Cass, we made a pact in the car freshman year driving to the Palestra that we’d be back our senior year and thankfully we are and yeah, it’s just amazing.”

Boccella somehow ended up with the game ball Tuesday night, the junior not quite sure how it was put in her hands or by who, but it felt like it was where it belonged. She’d grown up going to watch Wood play at the Palestra and thanks to her best outing of the season, she and her teammates would now be going to play against Wood at the Palestra.

“It feels great, not even to score, I don’t care how many points I had, just to win,” Boccella said. “I’m so happy to have this win for the first time for the program. It feels incredible.

“That was crazy, that was one of the most memorable games of my lifetime. Getting to the Palesta was a dream of mine, I can’t believe it.”

By Quarter
Lansdale Catholic:   5   |  18  |  11  |  19  ||  53
Archbishop Carroll:  9   |   7   |  14  |   9   ||  39

Scoring
LC: Olivia Boccella 20, Gabby Casey 18, Jaida Helm 11, Sanyiah Littlejohn 2, Alan Ciccocelli 2

AC: Taylor Wilson 16, Brooke Wilson 12, Alexis Eberz 9, Cortland Schumacher 2