City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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MERION — Dylan Burke sat and watched the Gwynedd Mercy girls basketball team from the bench for the first month of the season. Out with a torn ACL suffered before last season’s state playoffs, the Monarchs’ senior forward got to see how good the Monarchs could be, which only fueled her recovery more.

She made her return Jan. 3 and spent the last month and a half gearing up for the postseason. Burke was out on the floor Wednesday at Merion Mercy High School for what she visualized — a Gwynedd Mercy 48-25 championship game win over Villa Maria for the program’s second AACA title in three years.

“I wanted to come back and play on this team,” Burke said. “That made me work hard at PT. That made me stay in shape. That made me want to be around this group even when I was just on the bench. It made me want to come back to the sport that I thought about quitting.”

The Gwynedd Mercy girls basketball team poses with its AACA championship trophies following Wednesday's win over Villa Maria. (Photo: Owen McCue/CoBL)

Part of the reason Burke was so motivated to rejoin her teammates was sophomore Emilia Coleman. The younger sister of two former Monarchs, Coleman started as a freshman last season on a team led by Hannah Griffin (Holy Cross).

Coleman, a 5-11 wing, was already set to play a new role this season, taking over some of Griffin’s ball handling duties. With Burke and fellow senior co-captain Lauren Drakeley both sidelined with injuries early on, Coleman became a player the Monarchs could lean on. 

She had a team-high 23 points in Wednesday’s title game and was announced as league MVP after the win. 

“I definitely think the league made the right choice (on MVP),” Gwynedd coach Tom Lonergan said. “She handles for us, she hits the threes when we need them. She scores on offense, she distributes when we want them. She’s unbelievable on the glass at both ends of the floor, and the things that people probably didn’t notice is she was so active in our defense from the second quarter on.”

After Gwynedd fell into an early seven-point hole, Coleman scored her first points on a three late in the first quarter that sparked a personal 13-2 run. She had 15 by halftime (12 in the second quarter) with the Monarch up 20-15..She found herself open for a triple to kick off the second half and poured in seven points during Gwynedd’s 9-0 run to start the third quarter, which doomed the Hurricanes.

Coleman gave credit for Wednesday’s outing to junior Megan McDonnell, who was out sick but sent her words of encouragement before the game.

“She texted me,” Coleman said, “and was just like, ‘’Keep on shooting. You’re going to go off today. If you miss one, just keep on doing it. You’ll get one going. Once I hit that one three at the end of the quarter, it was gonna go. I was on a roll.”

Sophomore Bailey Balkir added another 11 points for Gwynedd, and Burke finished with eight points, picking up their scoring in the third when the Hurricanes decided to faceguard Coleman. 

Senior Carly Catania scored 12 for Villa, which was stifled by the Monarchs’ zone defense in the final three quarters, scoring 4, 6 and 4 points, respectively. 

“That’s why we were so successful today and why I think we’ll be so successful in districts and states is because we play as a team,” said Burke, a strong communicator at the back of the zone.

“They can’t drive on us because we’re all in a pack together. They can’t rebound on us because we’re all going for it. We move as a unit.”

Coleman left her imprint on the defensive end as well as she had four steals and a block to go with her stellar scoring night.

“She just sees everything,” Burke said. “Watching her in practice, she knows what’s going on more than I ever do. It’s cool for me to see that from her perspective and read off her, being that she’s a guard and I’m a forward and I see what she’s seeing.”

Coleman remembers watching her sisters Sofia (West Chester) and Bianca suit up for the Monarchs at La Salle College High School two years ago as they broke Gwynedd Mercy’s five-year AACA title drought. She also saw them add onto a five-year run of consecutive District 1 championship, which stopped last season when the Monarchs moved from 4A to 5A.

They’re the top seed in the 5A classification this year and will begin that run at home next week. Wednesday’s dominant performance over the Hurricanes should certainly have the rest of the district worried about a Monarchs team at full strength.

“Watching them it was fun to see them win the championship in the league,” Coleman said. “Going into freshman year, all I wanted was to win the league and win the districts. Now, getting the league done, I’m onto districts and I’m really excited for this opportunity.”

Gwynedd Mercy 46, Villa Maria 25

Gwynedd Mercy  7 | 13 | 17 | 9 || 46

Villa Maria  11 | 4 | 6 | 4 || 25

Scoring

Gwynedd Mercy: Emilia Coleman 23, Bailey Balkir 11, Dylan Burke 8, Brooke Evans 2, Ali Kaltenbacher 2.

Villa Maria: Carly Catania 12, Emma O’Hare 6, Sophia Tray 3, Abby Ferry 2, Sierra Dean 2.