City of Basketball Love

By Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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PHILADELPHIA — Once the tears dried, it took Nadia Yemola a few days to get over it. Once her tears were wiped away, it took Sanyiah Littlejohn a few weeks to recover.

Before Monday night at the Palestra, the last recollection the two Lansdale Catholic sophomores had of a championship game was a tearful walk off at Hershey’s Giant Center last spring after losing to Catholic League rival Archbishop Wood in the PIAA Class 4A state championship.

This time, it was completely different, with the pair full of giggles, each twirling a piece of the championship twine after the Crusaders’ historic 50-47 victory over Wood for their first Philadelphia Catholic League championship in girls’ basketball.

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Click here to read more about Lansdale Catholic's PCL title win
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Their numbers did not bear a lot.

Their actions did.

Littlejohn, the Crusaders’ 5-foot-9 point guard, had only one point. But her critical steal in the last minute of the game set up Olivia Boccella’s game-winning three-pointer. And it was a Littlejohn assist to St. Joe’s-bound Gabby Casey that got the Crusaders going with their fourth-quarter comeback.

Yemola, Lansdale Catholic’s other starting sophomore, played stifling defense on Wood’s dangerous Emily Knouse and was a key component in getting the Crusaders out to a 24-8 lead with over 4 minutes left in the first half.

Together, they finished what they felt they should have completed a year ago.

They still remembered the 57-45 loss to Wood in last year’s state title game.

“That was really tough walking off the court at Hershey last year,” Yemola said. “I try to move on from stuff pretty fast, but ... It took me a couple of days to get over it.”

It took Littlejohn longer.

“I would say it took me a few weeks to get over it, and I went back to work,” she said. “Tonight, we weren’t going to be denied. When they kept coming back on us, we stayed in denial and face-guarded them the whole time. I had no doubts we weren't going to lose. We couldn’t let their shooters get the ball.

“I had to take away their best player (Ava Renninger) and they put me on Delaney (Finnegan) more in the second half."

Yemola said the third quarter was a struggle.

“We kept playing as a team,” she said. “We had to lock up on defense, I couldn’t let Emily shoot, because she’s a very good three-point shooter. On offense, I had to make the right play and make the smart pass.”

In the first Lansdale Catholic practice, Crusaders’ coach Eric Gidney produced two picture printouts, one of the Palestra and the other of the Giant Center.

Gidney went around asking each player asking if they wanted to get to those arenas this year.

“I kind of wondered why (coach Gidney) had them out, but I know now and we accomplished one of those goals,” Littlejohn said.

Gidney was hoping his players would remember that moment. But there were expectations for the Crusaders this year.

“I wanted everyone to enjoy the process, and it makes it all the cooler because it happened, right?” Gidney said. “But first things first, we wanted to scale it back and settle down. One step at a time, one quarter at a time one game at a time, and enjoy the process.

“Those two faced a lot for 14, 15-year-olds last year, where they went from the Giant Center last year and reached the Catholic League finals at the Palestra this year. Those two understand their roles so well. Maybe their point totals are low, we don’t need that from them. Yemola’s three-pointer triggered our hot start and set a tone for us.”

Gidney said he felt confident in his two sophomore starters by their patience and poise.

It’s something not lost on Casey, the Philadelphia Catholic League MVP who’s shown great trust in her teammates in crucial moments. Casey sees things in her sophomore teammates that don’t see in themselves.

“They both do so much for us,” Casey said. "Without either of them, we’re not here. Sanyiah is our point guard; she does a great job distributing the ball. Without her, we don’t even have a point guard, and Sanyiah and Nadia are both intense on defense.

“Nadia hits her open shots, which is huge. She did tonight. She needs to have more confidence in herself and take those open shots. She doesn’t give herself as much credit as she deserves. She has the capability of hitting those shots and being a great player.

“Together, we wouldn’t have gotten to the states last year without them, and we wouldn’t have gotten this far without them. They play a huge role on our team. And off the court, they’re great. Nadia is always smiling and brings positive energy, and Sanyiah doesn’t talk much, but when she does, she’s always someone that can make us all laugh.”

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.