City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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MALVERN — The Villa Maria Academy girls basketball team entered Tuesday evening’s league opener against Gwynedd Mercy looking to send a message.

After losing five starters from last season's Athletic Association of Catholic Academies championship team, the Hurricanes wanted the rest of the league to know they aren’t going anywhere.

The message was sent loud in clear even before the conclusion of the triple overtime marathon. A comeback 49-44 victory to start league play added an exclamation point.

“It was huge, especially because they quote they’re the best team in the league, but we just wanted to show them that there’s competition,” Villa senior Carly Catania said.

“We just played our hearts out the whole game,” she added

Catania finished with a team-high 18 points and sophomore Sophia Tray wasn’t shy of the moment either, adding another 17 points and hitting some clutch buckets as well. Sophomore Emiliia Coleman countered with 20 points on the other side for Gwynedd.

Villa 36th-year head coach Kathy McCartney has had plenty of battles against Gwynedd Mercy over the years, including a buzzer beater Villa home win last season, but Tuesday’s AACA opener is definitely up there with the wildest. She can recall a few double overtime games in her career but three overtimes? Not so sure about that.

Monarchs assistant T.J. Lonergan knew it was destined to be a wild one when he stepped into the head coaching chair for his dad Tom, who was out sick along with starter Cara Lapp.

It was T.J. 's first game as a head coach since he was in charge at PJP in 2020-21.

“I was very accustomed to close games at PJP,” Lonergan said. “Every game I felt like at PJP, Methacton, Spring-Ford, overtime. I said of course the one game I had here. … We know each other very well, the teams. We know that style, we know what’s going to happen, it’s one of those grind it out games at the end.”

Gwynedd Mercy had chances to win the game at the end of regulation, end of the first overtime and end of the second overtime. The Monarchs took the lead in all three extra periods.

GM sophomore Bailey Balkir, who scored all of her 10 points after the third quarter, jumpstarted Gwynedd to a 33-29 lead with a 1:!8 left in OT1. Tray reeled off four in a row to tie the game. 

The wackiness began when Balkir hit four three throws, but got only two of them to count due to lane violations for a two-point GM lead. Catania tied the game inside off an inbound play with 7.8 seconds left. A contested game winning look inside by Monarchs freshman forward Ali Kaltenbacher came up short .

The Monarchs led 39-36 with 1:28 in OT2 on a Coleman putback. Tray had a big bucket before Villa senior Emma O’Hare, who hit a big three in the fourth quarter, came away with a steal and then hit a free throw to tie the game with 27.6 seconds. She joined Catania and Tray in double figures with 10. Freshman forward Ali Kaltenbacher. added 10 points and 17 rebounds for GM.

Longergan drew up a nice play again in the close of OT2 to get his team to the foul line but GM missed both potential game-winning free throws with 1.4 seconds left.

“We executed a lof it,” Longeran said of the late-game situations. “That’s what I told them at the end of the game. I told them they executed on the offensive side, and they executed on the defensive side, we just needed to do that for four quarters.”

“I’m very, very proud of them and it was a classic game, classic battle.”

Gwynedd got its lead all the way to five, 44-39, with 1:10 left in OT3. Tray hit a free throw then grabbed her own miss and got one to go quickly to make it a two-point game with 53 seconds left. 

Catania, who will continue her career at the University of New Hampshire, came back down and earned herself a chance to tie the game after being fouled on a drive. The officials added a technical foul to boot and she hit 3-of-4 free throws to put her team ahead, 45-44. She added another pair after her team inbounded the ball to extend the Villa lead to three.

She said she hasn’t been the one who had to take the big shot throughout her hoops career, particularly in her first three seasons at Villa. But that’s a role she will play for the Hurricanes this season with the likes of Mara McHugh (Gettysburg), Ella Iacone (Catholic) and Clare Cronley (Dickinson) at the next level.

“That’s what we expect her to do,” McCartney said. “She’s our leader. You gotta take the ball at the end of the game and win it for us.”

O’Hare stole the ball on the final GM possession and sealed the statement win with two more foul shots in the final seconds. 

Villa broke a four-game losing streak against Gwynedd and swept the season series in 2022-23, including a win in the AACA title game. The new-look group extended the win streak to four on Tuesday.

“As we put our pieces together this year, I think different pieces are going to step up for us,” McCartney said.

"They were at a deficit, but my young club took advantage of that and did what they had to do to win the game," she added.

The Monarchs graduated a big piece themselves in Hannah Griffin (Holy Cross), but Coleman, Balkir and Lapp return to the starting lineup and senior center Dylan Burke could return from injury in January.

The two teams meet again Jan. 20 at Gwynedd and could potentially meet a few more times in the league and district playoffs.

“We have at least one more,” Lonergan said. “I’m sure there’s more in store.”

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Villa Maria 49, Gwynedd Mercy 44

By Quarter
Huntington Prep: 4 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 5 ||  44

Villa Maria:   5 | 10 | 4 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 10 || 49

Scoring

Gwynedd Mercy Academy: Emilia Coleman 20, Bailey Balkir 10, Ali Kaltenbacher 10, Megan McDonnell 2, Brooke Evans 1, Carsy Kelly 1.

Villa Maria: Carly Catania 18, Sophia Tray 17, Emma O’Hare 10, Abby Ferry 3, Briella Romeo 1.