City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The District 1 6A girls tournament is down to eight teams in contention for the championship, while eight others play for their season in playbacks. Here’s a look at all eight games Saturday — well, one on Friday — night, starting with the four quarterfinals, all of whose participants have already qualified for the PIAA Class 6A bracket, and then the four elimination games, whose winners also will extend their seasons into states, with a couple seeding games ahead.

For more information on each team, be sure to read our second-round preview; we don’t need to rehash all 16 teams here, so we’re just going to look at matchups to watch any other key notes to know:

Quarterfinals
1) Perkiomen Valley vs. 8) Neshaminy (Fri., 7:30 PM)

The interesting thing about Perkiomen Valley beating Central Bucks East in the second round (49-42) is that it gives us a common opponent between the Vikings (24-1) and Neshaminy (19-6), as CB East beat Neshaminy 48-44 at East on Jan. 17, part of a cold spell that Neshaminy went through, scoring 19 against O’Hara and 30 against Pennsbury its next two games. Perk Valley hasn’t really had much of a cold streak this season, scoring at least 50 points in all but five of its games. The tough part for Neshaminy is that PV has the size to handle Reese Zemitis but the Vikings also have good guards and wings. At PV, as part of a boy-girl doubleheader, it’s going to be a PV-heavy crowd to boot.

Prediction: Perkiomen Valley, 60-48

4) Souderton vs. 5) Spring-Ford (1 PM)

This is a rematch of a semifinal game from a year ago, when S-F absolutely locked Soudy down to a 36-24 win, also on Souderton’s home court. The Rams, though they are tough and well-coached, don’t have much size outside of senior forward Meg Robbins, while Souderton is just tall across the board, from 5-10 point guard Casey Harter on up. But they don’t let it bother them with intense defense from its guards, which will have to get Harter and her teammates out of rhythm from the perimeter. If I’ve learned anything covering girls basketball the last two years, it’s not to underestimate a Mickey McDaniel-coached Spring-Ford squad. 

Prediction: Spring-Ford, 45-41

2) Haverford High vs. 7) Springfield (Delco.) (6 PM)

This will be the second Central League opponent in a row for Springfield, which beat Conestoga in the second round to gain a measure of revenge on the Central League semifinals. Now the Cougars can get some revenge for another league loss, as the Fords handed them a 55-38 defeat on their own court on Jan. 24. That’s easier said than done: Haverford’s 25-0 for a reason, the Dotsey sisters and Mollier Carpenter giving them size up front that Springfield just can’t match, and Springfield’s trademark defense can only be so good given Haverford’s major advantage on the glass and around the rim, not to mention strong ball-handlers in Sky Newman and Aniya Eberhart. I think it’s going to be tough for Springfield to keep this at the pace it’ll want to.

Prediction: Haverford High, 50-37 

11) Pennsbury vs. 19) Upper Dublin (1 PM)

Both of these teams have to be feeling great about their postseasons so far, each pulling big upsets in the second round — over Abington and Plymouth Whitemarsh, respectively — to qualify for states and put themselves in the quarterfinals. Both teams are very comfortable playing a grind-it-out type of game, and a few 3-pointers here and there are going to be the difference-maker in this. Upper Dublin’s almost certainly underseeded, considering the Cardinals added Amy Ngo back to the lineup in January after she tore her ACL at the end of her sophomore season, and they’re scoring at a higher clip than they were at the start of the year. As low-scoring as my prediction is, it could certainly be a game played in the 20s.

Prediction: Upper Dublin, 39-36

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Playbacks
9) Unionville vs. 17) Central Bucks East (7 PM)

I’ll be up front: this is the only game of the evening where I haven’t seen the two teams participating (seen the other 14), so it doesn’t feel right to make a pick. If it’s worth anything, they do have a mutual opponent in Perkiomen Valley, the Vikings beating CB East by seven in the second round and Unionville by 10 at Unionville back on Dec. 6. Unionville comes in having lost two of its last three in the playoffs but had won 13 of 14 before that point; CB East has lost five of its last seven overall, though none of them were bad losses. 

Prediction: ??

(Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

20) Garnet Valley vs. 21) North Penn (1 PM)

Both of these teams are in the playbacks after winning their first-round game and then losing their second, so they each know they can win in the playoffs — and they both did so in impressive fashion, GV coming from down 15 in the first quarter at Pennridge and North Penn beating Great Valley at the buzzer to stay alive. Garnet’s young, led by that sophomore core, while North Penn has Salisbury (Md.)-bound Abby Plaugher and junior guard Caleigh Sperling (above), who might be the best player in the game on Saturday. I’ll take the group that’s a little bit older, but Garnet’s going to have a chance if it shoots well.

Prediction: North Penn, 52-46

10) Conestoga vs. 15) Methacton (2 PM)

Methacton’s had a bit of a weird couple weeks, alternating between big victories — by 41 over PJP II and by 20 over Coatesville — and big losses, by a combined 43 points to Perk Valley and Haverford. The Warriors haven’t played too many teams that play defense like Conestoga, which has to play at a high level at that end to survive in the Central League. The big battle will be in the middle, where Conestoga sophomore Janie Preston and Methacton’s Mairi Smith will go head-to-head. Whoever can control the paint will have a big advantage in making it to states.

Prediction: Conestoga, 42-37

3) Plymouth Whitemarsh vs. 6) Abington (7 PM)

Certainly not a game that we expected in the playbacks, as both PW (22-3) and Abington (19-6) suffered upsets in the quarterfinals to set the rivals up with a do-or-die game at PW, the winner earning a states berth and the loser done for the year. It’s certainly a shame that the state bracket will be bereft of PW’s Abby Sharpe (Penn) and Erin Daley or Abington’s Cire Fields (UMass-Lowell). But we’re almost certainly going to get a great game: in three meetings this season, the cumulative score between Plymouth Whitemarsh and Abington is 147-147 after PW took the most recent, by a single point (in overtime!) in the Suburban One League semifinals. PW hasn’t lost on its home court all season, if that matters, but really, this one’s going to be played within a couple points either way.

Prediction: Coin flip…PW, 50-49 (OT)