City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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BERWYN — AJ Thompson knew back in the preseason that the difference between good and great for the Conestoga girls basketball team would be its defense.

That played out Saturday afternoon as the Pioneers used a dominant defensive outing to take the program to a place it hasn’t been in 45 years.

No. 2 seed Conestoga locked down No. 7 Garnet Valley, 54-25, in district quarterfinal, advancing to Wednesday's semifinal against No. 6 Spring-Ford — a 44-39 winner over Upper Dublin.

It’s the deepest district run for the Pioneers in the large-school classification since they reached the title game in 1979.

“We’ve worked on it, they’ve bought into it,” Thompson said of the defense. “Everyday at practice when we do our defensive drills or if we’re going live and focusing on the defense, they really go hard and listen and they’re always trying to make the right read or rotate. They’ve been great all season defensively.”

Saturday marked the fourth meeting between the two Central League squads and third this month. Conestoga (23-3) won a Dec. 21 matchup, 46-40. Garnet Valley (21-5) handed the Pioneers their second loss of the season in their regular season finale, a 43-42 Feb. 6 win. Then four days later the Pioneers knocked GV out, 51-31, in the Central League semifinals Feb. 10.

“We wanted to make sure we did everything with the same intensity, the same mentality,” Conestoga senior Marisa Francione said. “Anything can happen in the game of basketball, and we just wanted to make sure we got the job done.”

The fourth meeting played out similarly to the first with Conestoga breaking away in the second quarter when sophomore Ryann Jennings scored the first 10 points of the period. It was 23-12 at half and 40-17 by the end of the third after some of her teammates got going as well.

Jennings finished with a game-high 22 points, including 15 in the first half, to follow up a 21-point night in the second round win over Council Rock South on Wednesday. Francione followed with 13.

“Our whole team has been playing very well lately, and I’m very proud of how our team is playing,” Jennings said. “I’m looking for my shots. If I have a little bit of an opening, I’m just going to shoot it.”

Conestoga’s defense was stifling.

The Pioneers didn’t allow a bucket in the second quarter until Haylie Adamski’s breakaway bucket with 1:20 left in the half. The Pioneers held the Jags’ star junior to just four in the game.

Garnet Valley didn’t score again until Addison Adamski (five points) hit a pair of free throws with 3:14 left in the third. The Jags’ first field goal of the second half didn’t come until there were less than three minutes left in the fourth when the starters from both teams were already out of the game.

“They defended us really well, particularly our top scorers and shut them down,” Garnet Valley coach Joe Woods said. “Defensively, they did an outstanding job against them. We battled. We had a decent first quarter against them, but all credit to them. They just did a heckuva job, particularly defensively, which really generates their transition game.”

Stoga junior forwarrd Janie Preston had a pair of blocks in the first half. Jennings, Francione, senior Bella Valencia and junior Ruth Lanouette combined for six steals. Senior Katrina Valencia and sophomore Maggie Neary played their roles well too.

“We have this help defense that we’ve been working on, especially for this team because they have a lot of talented players,” Francione said. “That’s basically what we were working on all week, being able to show and then get back. Really quick defense.”

The Jaguars’ five losses have come to Conestoga, the Central League runner-up, and Haverford, the league champion.

Garnet Valley will look forward to the fact that the Pioneers nor Haverford awaits them in their state shedding game or state playoff opener — though there is a chance they could see the Fords inbetween.

“The Central League’s tough,” Wood said. “Our only losses are against the top two teams. It’s great for the league. Hopefully, we can make some noise in states.”

The Conestoga program hadn't been to even been to districts in two years when the Pioneers' senior class arrived in 2020-21.They missed the playoffs as freshmen, lost int he first round as sophomores before winning the program's first district playoff game since 2018 a season ago.

After reaching the quarterfinals for the first time since 2016 and booking the first semifinal trip in 45 years, the group is now one win away from adding a third District 1 championship game appearance (1973 and 1979) to the program's history.

“We expected to be good, but we’re just living up to it right now, and it’s better than we imagined,” Francione said.

Conestoga 54, Garnet Valley 25

By Quarter

GV  10 | 2 | 5 | 8 || 25

Stoga  11 | 12 | 17 | 14 || 54

Scoring

GV: Addison Adamski 5, Haylie Adamski 4, Reese Hunter 4, Katie Dwyer 3, Kylie Mulholland 3, Emily Olsen 2, Heaven Dada 2, Layne Zipperlen 1, Jordan Daubenberger 1.

Stoga: Ryann Jennings 22, Marisa Francione 11, Janie Preston 6, Katrina Valencia 5, Libby Brown 3, Rebecca Schmidt 2.