City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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KENNETT SQUARE —  Year after year, the Unionville girls basketball team has to look up at rival West Chester Rustin ahead of it in the Ches-Mont American standings.

Even during the terrific campaigns like a 21-win season in 2022-23, the Golden Knights find a way to spoil the Longhorns' fun — giving them two of their four regulars-season defeats a year ago.

So while Unionville entered Tuesday night's matchup against Rustin with a lot of confidence, the Longhorns still had to prove they could do it.

They left no doubt, leading from start to finish, in a 54-31 win over the Golden Knights, which snapped a four-game losing streak in the series.

“We’ve lost to Rustin every game I’ve played with this crew, so it felt really good to finally beat them,” Unionville junior Elle Johnson said.

“It definitely showed us that we can beat every team in this conference we believe, so we’re just hoping to keep it going and stay together throughout each game.”

Rustin (5-2) won the last two Ches-Mont League titles, going a perfect 20-0 in the American Division over the past two seasons, including four wins over the Longhorns. 

Even after graduating four starters from last season’s District 1-5A champion and PIAA semifinalist squad, the Golden Knights opened their season with five straight wins and sported a 5-1 record heading into Tuesday’s league matchup. Sophomore Jenna Kraft and junior forward   Sara Betchyk had 11 points. 

Unionville (6-1) scored the first nine points of the game and never looked back on the way to the first win over Rustin since Jan. 26, 2021. Johnson scored 20 points in the victory, which marked the just the second time the Longhorns took down their rivals since 2016 (2-13) and third time since 2011 (3-23).

“When you have an opportunity to play against a great program like this and do well, it’s always an exciting thing,” Unionville head coach Fred Ellzy said. “But these girls are real confident. They have a lot of confidence this year. I have four girls who came back from last year’s team and we went pretty far last year into the state tournament. They’ve seen some tough games and they enjoy playing with each other and they enjoy competing.”

Led by first team all-league guard Riley Angstadt, the Longhorns broke a two-decade state playoff drought a season ago. Seniors Savannah Lang and Milana Amoss, a four-year starter, and juniors Johnson and Shannon Megill are starters back this season for Unionville, but Angstadt’s graduation left a 15 ppg hole to fill.

Ellzy has a few players who can put up points. Junior Izzy Della Barba added 10 points (two threes) off the bench Tuesday, and Megill scored all eight of her points in the first half.

Amoss, who has averaged double figures throughout her career, is the other big threat. She had a 20-point outing last week, but played distributor Tuesday, scoring seven points and adding four assists as Johnson took charge on the offensive end. 

That’s something Johnson’s doing more of this season with Angstadt gone.

“We play well as a group, but (Johnson’s) a talented athlete, a talented basketball player, so her ability to score might be a little better than the average player,” Ellzy said. “She understands that, and she takes that lead and I have the utmost confidence in the shots that she takes, so I encourage her.”

Johnson had 10 points at halftime as Unionville led 33-18. She poured in eight in the third quarter as the Longhorns made sure the Golden Knights didn’t make a run.

“I’ve been working to keep consistently scoring and not kind of be there in the first half, disappear in the second,” Johnson said. “Especially losing Riley, we kind of have to make up for her points because she was a big part of the team last year.”

Johnson entered the program as a freshman two seasons ago with the ability to drive to the hoop. She started to see her offensive game expand last season with an outside shot. It’s something she continues to work on, finding an open gym every Sunday to get up shots with her dad.

Ellzy calls Johnson a “student of the game.” She rounded out her statline with four assists, eight rebounds and four steals, finding multiple ways to contribute to Tuesday’s big win.

“Her defense has really stepped up this year, over the last couple years, and that’s something we talked about at the end of last year,” Ellzy said. “(We wanted) her to not just be a scorer but a defender as well, to be known as someone who can affect both ends of the floor, and she’s really stepped it up.”

Unionville hasn’t won consecutive games against Rustin since sweeping the season series in 2009-10. The Longhorns will have until Jan. 23 for Round 2 with the Golden Knights.

There’s a lot of basketball to be played until then for Unionville, which is just one game into league play. But that doesn’t detract from the significance of Tuesday’s win, which confirmed the ambitions the Longhorns entered the season with are attainable. 

“Now that we’ve seen we can beat them, we know we can keep going and hopefully get to Ches-Monts and get to the championship and go on further this from year,” Johnson said.

Unionville 54, West Chester Rustin 31

By Quarter
WC Rustin: 7 | 11 | 8 | 5 || 31
Unionville: 19 | 14 | 14 | 7 || 54

Scoring
WC Rustin: Jenna Kraft 11, Sara Betchyk 11, Riley Stackhouse 6, Kailey Barry 2, Victoria Puzzangara 1.

Unionville: Elle Johnson 20, Izzy Della Barba 10, Shannon Megill 8, Milana Amoss 7, Allie D’Angelo 5, Savannah Lang 2, Kerri Menninger 2

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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