City of Basketball Love

By Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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POTTSTOWN, PA — Brooke Wilson’s eyes were too bloodshot from the tears, as she worked her way through the crowd and out the door of Pottstown High School gym Friday night.

The stellar, Army-bound Archbishop Carroll 5-foot-9 senior guard played her last high school game, after the defending PIAA Class 6A state champion Patriots were knocked out in the quarterfinals by District 11 champion Parkland, 48-37.

The loss hit Wilson like a funeral.

She did not speak to anyone. She rushed out—still wearing her Carroll uniform under a black jacket.

She leaves a legacy at Carroll of true grit that will resonate.

With Carroll down by 12 midway through the fourth quarter, Wilson dove for a loose ball at halfcourt and in getting tangles with another player was left wreathing in pain, lying supine on the court. When one of her teammates protested to the refs why time was not called to attend to Wilson, she was hit with a technical foul. Wilson gingerly got up, limped off the court, and after the technical foul shots were made, she limped back on to the court and finished the game.

It was typical Brooke Wilson.

“Brooke had an amazing career here at Carroll, just unbelievable,” Carroll coach and legendary St. Joe Hawk Renie Shields said of the 2023-24 Catholic League Most Valuable Player. “Her ability to defend and her ability to just pull people along is something I’ll never forget. She is just a great leader. She just wills things. It is the reason she is going to West Point. She is going to be a great cadet. Her upside is tremendous. You know she will never give up.

“She’s going to be defending this country—thank God.”

Wilson, who joins her sister Taylor at West Point this fall, also leaves an imprint on the Carroll players that will be following her. Alexis Eberz is just a sophomore and finished with a team-high 13 points. Next season, she will be joined at Carroll by her twin sisters, returning with sisters Maddie and Abby McFillin. Their older sister, Felicity McFillin, is the Patriots' only other graduating senior, this season her only one at Carroll as she joined her sisters in the PCL.

Eberz knows what it is like to win a PIAA Class 6A state championship, which she won as a freshman last season and she knows what it is like to play with Brooke Wilson.

“Brooke is a great teammate and a great player,” Eberz said. “Brooke is really going to be missed. She is the definition of a leader who made everyone else around her better. This hit her hard. This was her last high school game. She is going to move on and kill it there, and this hurt all of us. It hurt her more and this will hurt her for a little bit, but she will bounce back and bounce back stronger.

“That’s Brooke.”     

Parkland, led by the tremendous play of seniors Talia Zurinskas and Madi Siggins, who combined for 39 of Parkland’s 48 points, led from start to finish. The Trojans got off to a 5-0 start, Carroll came back to tie it at 7-7, and Parkland took off from there.

Parkland led 20-16 at halftime and with 5:36 to play was up by game-high 38-25 on a Siggins’ layup. The smaller Carroll team simply could not do anything inside against the 6-foot Siggins.

And if it was not Siggins inside, it was Zurinskas slicing through the Carroll defense.

“After the first three possessions, (Talia) was awesome,” Parkland coach Ed Ohlson said. “I could tell during our walk through she was dialed in. I was not worried about her at all. (Siggins and Zurinskas) were fabulous, but those other four or five girls I said them this is not a two-people game. Bella (Hallal) was unbelievable again, and I thought Ameri (McGalla) played an important tole tonight.”

Parkland will now advance to play Cardinal O’Hara, 49-35 winners over District 1 champion Perkiomen Valley, in the state semifinals on Monday at a site and time to be determined.

When asked what it was like to knock off the defending state champions, Ohlson said, “We didn’t look at it like that. We looked at it as the next team in our way. We saw the tape of what they did and basically said this is what we have to do to defend them. That was the thing we were most worried about, defending them.

“They are a very good defensive team. There are eight teams left. Everybody is really good.”

By Quarter
Carroll:      9   |   7   |   9   |  12  ||  37
Parkland: 12  |   8   |  14  |  15  ||  48

Scoring
Carroll: Alexis Eberz 13, Brooke Wilson 11, Maddie McFillin 7, Bridget Archbold 4, Abby McFillin 2.

Parkland: Talia Zurinskas 23, Madison Siggins 16, Delaney Chilcote 4, Isabella Hallal 4, Ameri McGalla 1.

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.

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PIAA 6A Girls

Quarterfinals (Fri., March 15)
12-2 Cardinal O’Hara 49, 1-1 Perkiomen Valley 35
11-1 Parkland 48, 12-1 Archbishop Carroll 37
1-6 Garnet Valley 58, 1-4 North Penn 51
1-2 Spring-Ford 60, 7-1 Norwin 47

Semifinals (Mon., March 18)
12-2 Cardinal O’Hara vs. 11-1 Parkland
1-6 Garnet Valley vs. 1-2 Spring-Ford

Championship at Giant Center (Fri., March 22)
TBD, 6 p.m.