City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3)
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PHILADELPHIA – Laine McGurk figured it would be good motivation.

Back in August, she and her twin sister Elizabeth were on Temple’s campus visiting their older sister when they passed by the Liacouras Center. Knowing her goal was to be back on Broad Street in March, Laine posed for a photo in front of the arena and sent it to West Chester Rustin coach Lauren Stackhouse with a message.

Saturday, McGurk and her teammates not only made it to Temple, they won, the top-seed Golden Knights downing defending champion Villa Maria Academy 54-43 to win the District I 5A title.

“We were walking by and my sister pointed out, ‘That’s the Liacouras Center,’ and I thought I should text this to my coach because we want to be playing here in March,” Laine McGurk said. “It was in the backs of our minds and I knew if I sent her that picture, then we’d have to make it here. That was the goal all season long, obviously we were reaching for the Ches-Mont and to be the number one seed but the overall goal was to win here.”

The West Chester Rustin girls basketball team celebrates following Saturday's District 1 5A title game win over Villa Maria at the Liacouras Center. (Photo: Dan Hilferty/CoBL)

The district title was the first for the program, the Golden Knights having never even reached a District I championship game, the school opening in 2006.

Laine McGurk led the way as usual, the Drexel-bound senior scoring a game-high 17 points that included 11 in a fast starting first quarter but it was not a one-player effort. The Knights received numerous contributions from their other four starters, who took advantage of the big stage to show they can play a bit too.

Laine and Elizabeth McGurk, Lola Flynn and Ava Panetta — the team’s four senior starters - are the class Stackhouse came in with and have carried the mentality of writing a legacy for the program. So when her phone buzzed back in August with the photo of Laine outside the arena, she wasn’t surprised.

“This group is special,” Stackhouse said. “Laine sent me a picture outside of Temple back in August as said ‘we will be here in March,’ and we made that our goal from Day One. She brought that picture out again a few weeks ago as a reminder and I feel like these girls came in here prepared because this is what they’d been working so hard for.”

The Hurricanes had championship aspirations too, their senior-laden squad having captured last year’s title as an underdog No. 10 seed. Aside from a brief 2-2 tie early in the game, the AACA champions played most of the game fighting an uphill battle thanks to Laine McGurk helping spot Rustin an 18-10 lead after a quarter.

VMA coach Kathy McCartney gave plenty of credit to the Knights’ supporting cast and in her own succinct way, summed up her team’s offensive performance. Senior and AACA Co-MVP Marah McHugh scored 13 points but she and her teammates missed a good number of shots that have gone down pretty regularly during the season.

McCartney summed it up but also noted it’s always an accomplishment to reach the district title game and her group has a chance to see Rustin again if both teams find success in states.

“We didn’t have it today. We were very atypical today, not our normal selves. I don’t really know why; if I did, I would have fixed it,” McCartney said.

“We shot like blind women today, and it was tough, we just couldn’t get anything going. We’d get a little momentum, we’d steal the ball and then miss a wide-open layup, and that’s just a backbreaker when you’re trying to get back in the game.”

The teams played fairly even after the first quarter, the difference coming down to Rustin’s ability to capitalize off the Hurricanes’ turnovers and not the other way around. 

“We traded baskets with them when we were trying to get back in, we’d come up with a steal. Someone said it was 23-6 points off turnovers, like the same amount of turnovers, right, and ours just came at killer times and then they capitalized on us,” McCartney said. “You have to give them credit, they were ready to play today and we just weren’t.”

After her scorching start, which involved a steal at midcourt leading to a banked-in three to end the quarter, Laine McGurk only scored six points the rest of the way. That was fine with Rustin, with her teammates all finding a sport or several spots to assert themselves.

Panetta scored four points, the senior guard in all over the place with five rebounds, an assist and a steal just totally invested in the outcome. The 5-foot-1 guard recalled the list of goals the team wrote on its locker room whiteboard in preseason, methodically checking off each one until they got to Temple.

“We wanted to make sure we finished this season out the way we wanted,” Panetta said. “I’ve been playing basketball since I was little with all of these girls, so I’m super-excited for us but the journey isn't done.”

West Chester Rustin's Lola Flynn, right, drives on Villa Maria's Ella Iacone. (Photo: Dan Hilferty/CoBL)

Elizabeth McGurk had seven of her nine points in the third quarter, taking a couple plays that normally go to her sister for her own scores. Riley Stackhouse finished with 11 points while the fourth quarter belonged to Flynn, the senior weaving through a frustrated VMA defense for six of her 13 in the closing stanza.

Last year, the Knights were out after two games, their season ending in the Class 6A playbacks. Flynn, who had her left shoulder layered in tape and walking with a bit of a limp after it was over, summed up the difference in this year’s squad in two words - trust and friendship.

“We all know that if we’re negative and not picking each other up at all times, then we’re not going to play as a team and not play to our full potential,” Flynn said. 

“Yes, Laine is one of the best players in the state, if not the best player in the state but we feel like as a team we’re really, really strong,” Lauren Stackhouse said. “We bring a lot of different things to the floor and you can’t just be worried about one person, you have to make sure you’re worried about all five.”

Throughout the season, the Knights tested themselves, a side-effect of putting their motivation into a photo meaning they’d have to be ready to back that declaration up.

“No stage was too big for us, no moment was too big,” Laine McGurk said. “We knew coming here the lights were going to be bright, it’s a bigger court, a bigger stadium, more people watching so we wanted to take that to our advantage and grow the program.”

“We’re setting the standard for Rustin now,” Elizabeth McGurk added. “Rustin’s never won this or even made it here as long as the school’s been around. Hopefully, they’ll be coming back here even more after we leave.”

Anyone that’s only looked at West Chester Rustin as Laine McGurk and a collection of names has been missing out. The Knights showed they’re a whole lot more than that on Saturday and it brought them their first district title.

“Today, we played as a team like we always do,” Riley Stackhouse said. “We didn’t leave anything out there.”

“No stone unturned,” Panetta said. “That’s what our coach says all the time.”

Laine McGurk’s impromptu photo outside the Liacouras Center gave form to Rustin’s motivation this winter, but the seed was planted a few years prior inside the same building. As freshmen, Flynn and the McGurks went to the 2019-20 6A championship, watching a madhouse crowd as Maddie Burke and CB West topped Ava Sciolla and Pennsbury.

As they sat there, the Pennsbury crowd chanting at Burke and the West fans going wild at the slightest provocation, the Rustin trio knew they needed to have their own moment on the same stage.

“That crowd was so fired up, they were all screaming at Maddie Burke like ‘you’re overrated’ and my dad said your goal should be to get here and have people screaming at you,” Laine McGurk said. “That’s what we all wanted.”

By Quarter
Rustin:  18  |  13  |  13  |  10  ||  54
Villa:      10  |  10  |  11  |  12  ||  43

Shooting
Rustin: 19-42 FG (4-8 3PT), 12-18 FT
Villa: 16-45 FG (4-17 3PT), 7-11 FT

Scoring
Rustin: Laine McGurk 17, Lola FLynn 13, Riley Stackhouse 11, Elizabeth McGurk 9, Ava Panetta 4

Villa: Marah McHugh 13, Elaina Guerzon 8, Carly Catania 5, Alice Nash 5, Olivia Broadhurst 5, Ella Iacone 3, Claire Crowley 2, Ava Irvine 2