Jared Leveson (@jared_leveson)
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BENSALEM — Archbishop Wood’s Delaney Finnegan has taken pride in her defense since the 4th grade.
She was always one of the faster kids growing up and can’t remember a time when she hadn’t guarded the opposing team’s best player.
“They always put me on the best player because I can keep up with them,” the 5-foot-10 wing said. “I’ve kinda went with it and grown with it.”
“I usually want to guard the best player. I do take pride in it.”
When the senior got tasked with guarding West Chester Rustin’s Laine McGurk in the PIAA 5A semifinal at Bensalem High School, she was more than ready.
Finnegan and her teammates’ strong defensive and shooting night was critical in advancing Archbishop Wood to their third straight PIAA state championship game. The Vikings ended Rustin’s historic postseason run, defeating the Golden Knights 52-35, and will play South Fayette on Saturday at the GIANT Center in Hershey.
The Archbishop Wood girls celebrate making it back to Hershey after winning the 4A title last year. (Photo: Jared Leveson/CoBL)
The senior finished with four points and one offensive rebound, but her role isn’t to score, it’s to lock down the opponent’s best player, which she did. Rustin’s McGurk, the Ches-Mont MVP and a Drexel commit, scored seven points and hit just two shots because of Finnegan’s relentless pressure.
Wood head coach Mike McDonald preached improvement after the Vikings’ quarterfinal win over Bishop Shanahan last Saturday, and Finnegan heeded her coach’s words and studied McGurk’s game in preparation.
“She’s really well known for her pull-up jumper,” she said about the Drexel commit. “She can just jump so high and rise up above anybody. We knew she was really right-handed so I wanted to pressure her right hand as much as possible and just try to keep her out of the 3-point line as best I can by denying her and by pressuring the ball anytime she had it or was dribbling. I knew she was really dangerous in the lane, so I wanted to be as aggressive as I can in the lane with her.”
Delaney Finnegan (above, left) locked in on Rustin star Laine McGurk all game long. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)
McDonald had all the confidence in Finnegan to get the job done. She’s done it her whole career.
“She’s about 5-foot-10, good length in the arms — but it's her instincts, her toughness, her IQ,” he said. “She knows what she’s doing out there. It’s not just a kid who is denying. She’s a tough and long kid to go along with it.”
McGurk had been instrumental for Rustin all season and led the Golden Knights to their first District 1 title in program history. She’d been on a tear in the postseason too, averaging 25 points per game.
Lauren Stackhouse, Rustin’s head coach, gathered herself emotionally before offering her thoughts on McGurk, the school’s all-time scoring leader with more than 1,700 career points.
“I feel like she allowed us to coach her,” she said. “So for me that’s the part that I’ll miss the most. Everybody focuses on her as a player, but we got to watch her grow as a person.
Laine McGurk (above) leaves Rustin as the school's all-time leading scorer. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)
“She’s going to be missed, for sure, watching her achieve all her personal and individual goals was amazing. But what she did for this team as well, helping us to achieve our team goals on top of all of that, I think says a lot.”
Laine’s twin sister, Elizabeth McGurk performed well with Wood’s defensive emphasis on Laine. Elizabeth, a St. Joe’s lacrosse commit, scored eight of her team-high 13 points in the first half and the Golden Knights only trailed 25-19 heading into halftime.
Rustin came out the break confident and the McGurk twin’s started letting it fly from beyond the arc. Elizabeth hit one and Laine hit another two and all of a sudden, Wood’s lead dwindled down to 29-28 midway through the third quarter.
But Tuesday night’s game was Wood’s eleventh PIAA semifinal appearance and this group's third straight final four. They’ve been in these spots before and responded positively.
“Just to slow down a little bit,” Wood’s Ava Renninger said about their response to Rustin’s third quarter run. “Not get rushed, hit our shots, do our thing, and put the ball in the basket and get the stops defensively to not let them get ahead.”
Finnegan’s defense on McGurk helped keep Wood in front, but Renninger, who’s received offers from Quinnipiac and Farliegh Dickinson was the catalyst for Wood’s 10-0 third quarter run. The 5-foot-6 junior guard finished with 17 points and went 7-of-9 from the field, doing her damage by driving downhill to the cup.
“She’s heady, she’s crafty, she knows how to play the game,” McDonald said about Renninger. “She was kinda ahead of her times coming into high school, as far as IQ and her strength. She’s not just a little guard out there. She hits the weights hard, lower body, upper body.
Ava Renninger (above) had a game-high 17 points and seven rebounds. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)
“She’s physically strong, even though she’s 5-6. So when she gets into that area around the basket she can take the contact, go through it, and finish anyway.”
Wood got their stops defensively due in part to their size advantage over West Chester Rustin. The Vikings feature Finnegan, Lauren Tretter (5-foot-9), Kara Meredith (6-feet), Emily Knouse (6-feet) and Deja Evans (6-foot-2). While the Golden Knights' tallest player was Laine McGurk (5-foot-10), they also rolled out Ava Panetta (5-foot-1) and Lola Flynn (5-foot-7).
Rustin’s guards fearlessly attacked the paint, but struggled when Evans, who sat for most of the first half and third quarter with foul trouble, found her way back on the floor during Wood’s game-altering run.
The Albany commit scored four points, but also recorded two of her three blocks in the third that repelled Rustin’s offense from shrinking their deficit.
“Their size was definitely a challenge,” Stackhouse said. “They got a lot of length at a lot of positions, so I felt like they did a good job of utilizing that and the one strength and advantage that they had over us, credit to them. We knew it was not going to be easy. We knew we were going to have to work hard for every basket.
“When we got to within a point, I thought we were really going to turn the corner, but they made a run. My girls never stopped fighting, my girls never quit. Today was just (Archbishop Wood’s) day.”
“We started getting to the basket and finishing [and] getting stops down the other end,” McDonald added. “I think we made them make tough shots and our help defense being where they are supposed to be, taking away the shots we wanted to take away and giving them the ones we wanted to give up. Phenomenal job defensively from us.”
Emily Knouse (above) had 13 points and four rebounds for Wood. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)
McDonald felt confident in his team’s chances early on because of Knouse’s two 3-pointers to start the game, but also his squad’s demeanor heading to the game and during warmups.
“We just talked about good energy,” he said. “A different focus coming into the game. Of course, our bus was a little late getting here because it went the wrong route, but we had that happen in the Catholic League semi-final when we played O‘Hara so we weren’t worried about that but just focused, being ready to play and kinda locked in.
“They wanted to get to Hershey, you could see it on everybody’s body language, you could just see it in them that they were ready.”
Finnegan, one of seven seniors on Wood’s roster, is excited to reach their third straight state final appearance, and first in the 5A classification since 2018. But Finnegan will get tested again in the state final where they’ll meet District 7 champions South Fayette on Saturday who feature 5-foot-9 Maddie Webber (Villanova) and 6-foot-4 Ava Leroux (Elon).
“I know that not everybody is able to make it to a state championship, let alone make it to three,” Finnegan said. “It’s really big. I’m hoping we can win. I know we definitely can if we just keep playing how we are so I’m just really excited.”
By Quarter:
Archbishop Wood: 16 | 9 | 14 | 13 || 52
West Chester Rustin 11 | 8 | 9 | 7 || 35
Scoring:
Archbishop Wood: Ava Runninger 17, Emily Knouse 13, Deja Evans 6, Kara Meredith 6, Lauren Tretter 6, Delaney Finnegan 2
West Chester Rustin: Elizabeth McGurk 13, Laine McGurk 7, Lola Flynn 5, Riley Stackhouse 5, Ava Panetta 4, Kailey Barry 1
Tag(s): Home High School Girls HS Catholic League (G) Ches-Mont (G) Archbishop Wood Ches-Mont American (G) West Chester Rustin Jared Leveson