City of Basketball Love

Dan Arkans (@danarkans)
––

The biggest cheer from the Central Bucks East girls basketball players was at halftime.

That was when the Central Bucks Athletic Association youth basketball players took the court and hit free throws for Community Night.

You see, the Patriots have had a laser-like focus this year, which has them second in the District 1 6A rankings after a 53-28 whitewashing of rival CB South on Friday night.

CB East now sits with a record of 14-2, 9-2 in the SOL Colonial.

“This has been a really great season for us,” senior captain Anna Barry said. “For my senior year, it’s been really good to pull out close wins. It shows the growth of our team. We are all staying composed and finishing out games. That’s something we had been struggling with last year and the year before.”

The season has been a special one for the Patriots, which currently has them on a five-game winning streak. The campaign began with a win over CB West and continued with a triumph over another rival.

In between was an incredibly successful three-game trip through Florida over the Christmas holidays.

“What a ride, huh?,” said CB East head coach Liz Potash. “We knew we had a really tough schedule with non-league and league. We went down to Florida, they put us in a good bracket over Christmas. The girls have stepped up. In some ways we are pretty young. When we put the schedule together, I don’t know if we are ready for it? We have done pretty well so far. It’s exciting to come down to the home stretch and hopefully ride this out for Anna and Chantal (Von Dongeren).”

Still though as successful the Patriots have been this season there is the matter of them being in second place to North Penn in the SOL Colonial despite a victory over the Knights, with a finale looming on February 6.

Winning the Colonial is a goal East is not ready to give up just yet.

“You gotta chase the nearer goals first,” Barry said. “We want to win the league. We just try to do our best to compete every night. When we play North Penn we will give it our best like we always do. The biggest goal is to start with the league.”

While the drama of a winner-take-all finale against North Penn would be memories that seniors Barry and Von Dongeren could take with them to graduation, the Patriots aren’t about to look past any opponent. 

“We know there is one team ahead of us,” Potash said. “It could very well come down to our last game of the year against North Penn. There are a lot of games before that. We still have two crossover games, we still have to play Pennridge and Souderton. We can’t focus on North Penn right now. We have to focus on the next game ahead of us, which is tomorrow afternoon.”
What has the Patriots crossing off all their wish lists for this special season were on display on Friday night against rival South. Despite the baskets not falling to start the game, the Patriots came away with eight steals and dominated the first half in taking a 25-13 advantage.

Barry for one wasn’t her usual scoring self with just two points, but came away with three of her five steals in the first half. The point guard also dished out two first-half assists.

“We really try to feed our offense off our defense,” Barry said. “I always try to tell everyone to start on the defensive end. It will carry over to the offensive end. If we can get it done on the defensive end we will always win.”

East finished the game with 13 steals in all as its full-court pressure simply controlled the game. While the defense was dominating, sophomore guard Natalie Berndt was cooking with all 15 of her points in the first half, including two 3-pointers.

“At halftime we had a double-digit lead,” Potash said. “That’s hard to do. The league is tough. We expect a tough game. We are not the kind of team that will put away another team early in the game. We chip away. What we count on is the defensive end. I think we held them to 12 at halftime. To that credit that is our goal. We only look at what we give up at halftime. We know we have kids who can score and hit shots. We know we will settle into that groove. To us it’s about getting those stops on the defensive end.”

While Barry was quiet in the first half, she was not shy in the second half. The senior point guard began the half with a 3-pointer and never let up, scoring 11 of her 13 points in the second half.

After the trey, she added a nifty left-handed drive and added a free throw. By the time the third quarter ended, South was coasting with a 41-19 lead.

“We were definitely expecting a tough game,” Barry said. “Last time they played us to three. A game against South in any sport really is always good. I think we put a whole game together and stayed consistent throughout. It wasn’t anything that South did. We showed we were the better team and could play at a really high level.” 

By Quarter
CB South   4   |   9   |   6   |   9   ||  28
CB East     9   |  16  |  16  |  12  ||  53

Scoring
CB South: Schmidt 3; Wheeler 4; Balkie 2; Samayo 10; Klein 7; Tropea 2

CB East: Lockwood 9; Berndt 15; Barry 13; Ralph 8; Moran 4; Penecale 2; Hayes 2