City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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PHILADELPHIA — The Nazareth Academy girls basketball team knows the bitter taste of finality. The majority of the team are comprised of the Pandas’ soccer team, which reached the Catholic League championship and was knocked out in the first round of the PIAA state playoffs by Wyomissing in November.

The Pandas did not have to go far for a reminder.

That game was played at the very place where the Pandas began their PIAA Class 4A state championship basketball trek against District 3 No. 3-seed Bishop McDevitt on Saturday — Holy Family University.

This time, after overcoming some rocky first-half terrain, the Pandas staved off finality with an impressive 55-39 victory over McDevitt.

The No. 2-seed out of District 12, Nazareth (15-11) will now play District 4 champion Central Columbia (26-2), 48-39 winners over Trinity, in the second round Wednesday at a site and time to be determined.

On Saturday, the Pandas were paced by Reese Power’s game-high 16 points, with Abby Rock chipping in with 14 and Gracie Sullivan scoring 10 and providing strong interior defense and rebounding.

But the Pandas did not arrive here easily. McDevitt (Harrisburg) made things difficult early on, staying with Nazareth through the first half, when the teams entered intermission locked in a 24-24 tie.

Nazareth girls basketball players, from left: Rileigh Donohoe, Abby Rock, Natalie D'Alfonso, Reese Power, Gracie Sullivan and Alyssa Browning. (Photo: Joseph Santoliquito/CoBL)

“There were definitely some jitters in the beginning, especially when it comes to the amount of time that you have to prepare for the state playoffs getting five days,” Pandas coach Mary Kate Magagna said. “It almost becomes mental a little bit, where you are over-preparing to a certain point until you finally see the team that you are playing against. You get those first few possessions out of the way and take a breath.”

The Pandas reached the second round of the PIAA Class 4A playoffs last year, losing to Scranton Prep. Much of that team is back.

Magagna said Nazareth playing in the rugged Catholic League for the first time this season sharpened her team’s experience in handling tough postseason opposition.

That proved itself in the third quarter, when the Pandas opened what had been a tight game behind Power and Rock, who combined to score 14 of Nazareth’s 18 third-quarter points. Sullivan, meanwhile, was doing the gritty inside work.

“I absolutely loved the way we played in the second half,” Magagna said. “It showed our maturity that this team has right now. It’s a heavy junior class. They are not freshmen and sophomores anymore. They knew not to get down and had a whole second half to do this.”  

A first-team All-Catholic League goalie in soccer, Sullivan had been battling an injury. Changing from a 2-3 zone to a 3-2 at halftime caused McDevitt some problems.

“There was no way I was sitting out,” said Sullivan, a junior whose buzzer-beater sent the Pandas into overtime in the second round of last year’s state playoffs. “When we made that change, we felt there was no way they would be able to handle that. We were not running our offense the way we liked. But we settled down.

“We have three seniors who play important parts of this team, and we wanted to win this for them moving forward.”

Power, too, was on the court when the Pandas fell in 2023.

“We felt the disappointment, and that is motivating us this year,” Power said. “Today, we just had to get the jitters out in the first half, and in the second half we worked as a team.”

Settled down and possessing the ball were keys against McDevitt.

“We didn’t have many turnovers and made open shots, which helped us today,” Rock said. “We’ll need to do that moving forward for us to win. Our defense worked, and I think we can take our aggressiveness from this game and bring it to the next.”

By Quarter

Bishop McDevitt: 13 | 11 | 10 | 5 || 39

Nazareth Academy: 12 | 12 | 18 | 13 || 55

Scoring

Bishop McDevitt: Sophia Formica 8, Olivia Grella 7, Olivia DeAntonio 7, Kayla Culver 7, Elle Osevala 5, Leilah Horshaw 4, Meredith Backhaus 1

Nazareth Academy: Reese Power 16, Abby Rock 14, Gracie Sullivan 10, Rileigh Donahue 9, Alyssa Browning 6.

Joseph Santoliquito is a hall of fame, award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.