City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3)
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DOWNINGTOWN >> A month ago, the thought of another home game seemed beyond improbable to Faith Ambrose.

The Bishop Shanahan senior guard and her teammates had dropped their regular season finale at home, then went into the District 1 5A tournament as the No. 9 seed with no shot at a home game. Winning the district title gave them another chance as they opened the PIAA tournament Saturday, but as the fourth quarter started, the Eagles trailed Mechanicsburg.

Ambrose wasn’t going to waste the chance to make amends, coming up clutch as the Eagles downed the Wildcats 38-27.

“I definitely did not want to lose,” Ambrose said. “It was hard to score, they were playing in a zone but when they switched to man it gave us some free lanes and I started attacking.”

Ambrose scored 12 points in the game, a high number for a low-scoring contest, but it was the fourth quarter where the bulk of that production came. The senior netted seven points, a steal and a rebound in the frame, plus notched the assist on the game-tying basket from her younger sister Carmel to start the quarter.

With the Wildcats packed into their 1-3-1 for much of the night, the Eagles weren’t able to break them out of it thanks to a rough night shooting the ball. Shanahan went just 4-of-25 from beyond the arc, three of those makes coming from Carmel Ambrose and the other from Faith as a first-quarter buzzer beater.

Carmel Ambrose’s two third-quarter threes put a crack in the zone, then her early fourth quarter trey and another that was halfway down before rimming out, finally broke it. True to her first name, Faith’s belief in her sister never wavered through the early shooting slump.

“She was upset with herself at halftime, I heard her say ‘I can’t make anything,’” Faith Ambrose said. “I told her to just keep shooting. She made those three in the second half which were huge for us.”

Shanhan coach Jim Powers also pointed to his team’s defense as a game-changer. Mechanicsburg led 9-2 five minutes into the game, but the Wildcats were only able to take a 17-14 lead to halftime as the hosts defended their home court well enough to stay in the game.

In the second half, Mechanicsburg only got scoring from two players with guard Alaina Sweet the only one to convert a basket after halftime.

“Early in the game, we rushed shots because we didn’t want to be patient with it,” Powers said. “We didn’t execute great against it and in the third quarter we finally did. We knocked some shots down, moved better and got some better looks against it  .

“Thank goodness the defense kept us in it while we got our heads right and decided to execute correctly.”

Following Carmel’s game-tying three, Faith came up with a steal on the other end and while the Eagles missed a three off the turnover, senior Sam Blumenthal was able to get the offensive rebound and draw a foul on her putback try. Sweet answered with a solid move inside to tie the game 27-27 with 5:19 to go.

Back in February, when the Eagles dropped their home finale against West Chester Henderson, it was a sparse crowd and the gym didn’t have a lot of energy. With a packed stanchion of Shanahan students behind the team bench and a lot of other supporters in the seats on Saturday, they just needed something to set them off.

Faith Ambrose provided the spark with back-to-back driving layups, the second netting an and-one whistle.

“I just spun it up, hoping it would go in,” Ambrose said of the second layup. “They called a foul while I was up there and I think a lot of the momentum just carried over.”

While the idea of first round home playoff games in the state tournament has its pros and cons depending who gets asked, it was a bonus that the Eagles players never expected to have. After her two layups put Shanahan on top for good, Ambrose added three foul shots on four attempts to seal the deal and end her home career feeling much differently than the last time she’d left that floor after a game last month.

“It means a lot to end with a win on our home floor,” Ambrose said. “I didn’t think we’d have another one. It was not a good feeling but having another chance where everyone was super-loud, they gave us a lot of momentum and made it a lot of fun.”

Shanahan will face District 2 runner-up Abington Heights in Wednesday’s second round. Last season, the Eagles reached the state quarterfinals before their run was stopped by eventual champion Archbishop Wood.

This year’s team took some time to get it together, but Ambrose feels like this group of Eagles can make a run of their own. After all, they’ve been pretty good with second chances so far this postseason.

“We talked about how sometimes, you don’t get a second chance so when you do, you’d better take advantage of it,” Powers said. “They took advantage of it, but Mechanicsburg made it hard. Give them credit, they played well.”

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By Quarter
BISHOP SHANAHAN 10 | 4 | 8 | 16 || 38
MECHANICSBURG 9 | 8 | 8 | 2 || 27

Scoring
BS: Faith Ambrose 12, Sam Blumenthal 9, Carmel Ambrose 9, Abbey Wolfe 6

M: Alaina Sweet 15, Lauren Lebo 6, Asha Pratt 3, Macy Yanoski 2, Dani Klinger 1

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PIAA 5A Girls (local games)

First Round (Sat., March 9)
1-4 West Chester East 57, 12-2 Freire Charter 30
12-3 Dallas 43, 1-2 Villa Maria 41
2-2 Abington Heights 64, 12-3 Archbishop Ryan 26
2-1 Scranton 55, 12-4 Palumbo 20
11-1 Bethlehem Catholic 41, 1-5 Gwynedd Mercy 35
1-3 West Chester Rustin 40, 11-2 Whitehall 10
12-1 Archbishop Wood 55, 1-6 Radnor 43
1-1 Bishop Shanahan 38, 3-7 Mechanicsburg 27

Second Round (Wed., March 13)
1-1 Bishop Shanahan vs. 2-2 Abington Heights
1-4 West Chester East vs. 11-1 Bethlehem Catholic
2-1 Scranton vs. 1-3 West Chester Rustin
12-3 Dallas vs. 12-1 Archbishop Wood