City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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PHILADELPHIA — The pitch was deemed “chaos.” Selling it was easy. The execution would take time. It would require Neumann-Goretti coach Andrea Peterson to convince her star senior guards, Delaware State-bound Amya Scott and Fordham-bound Carryn Easley, to give up portions of their game for the overall betterment of the team.

It meant an offensive of constant movement, constant ball-sharing, constant weaving and sliding, and a very large, heaping helping of patience.

A few years ago, Easley and Scott may have given their coach a sneaky sideways glance and wondered what they were getting into. On Thursday night, the bought-in seniors injected a good dose of “chaos” into visiting Lansdale Catholic, and came out 58-54 victors.

It marked Neumann-Goretti’s first home game this season after a month and 11 games on the road. The Saints are now 10-2 overall and 3-0 in the Catholic League and have now placed themselves as viable contenders for the Catholic League title.

If things can continue to work the way they did Thursday night against a very good team, some good things may be ahead for the undersized Saints. They battled all night some good players in the Lady Crusaders’ Sanyiah Littlejohn (George Mason), Nadia Yemola (Kutztown) and Grace McDonough (James Madison), who combined for 45 of Lansdale Catholic’s 54 points."

When Peterson yelled chaos, it means chaos. What is significant is that Scott and Easley bought in to selflessness, to patience, to sharing the ball, to many things in the past they used to wrestle with.

“I think Amya and Carryn’s maturity made this an easy sell,” Peterson said. “Not every win is pretty. Lansdale Catholic is very well coached, they have a talented team with good size, and we struggled with that a little, but we once we gained our composure, we were okay.”

The victory, though in early January, held greater meaning to Neumann-Goretti. It went beyond the Catholic League standings to a state bid, since both Lansdale Catholic and Neumann-Goretti are both Class 4A schools.

It didn’t start well for the Saints. They trailed 5-0 in the first minute. Then chaos began. They started speeding up Lansdale Catholic. The Lady Crusaders began turning over the ball, seven in the first quarter, and 11 in the half. In a blink, the Saints were up 19-9 making 8 of their first 10 shots from the floor.

Everyone was involved.

Scott scored a team-high 15, eight coming in the first quarter, and Easley added 14, seven coming in the first quarter. When those two cooled, then it was the Saints’ sterling sophomore, Reginna Baker, who finished with 11, and did a decent job trying to defend 6-foot-2¼ senior McDonough.

Lansdale Catholic turned the ball over 20 times during the game, seven coming in the first quarter and six in the fourth quarter.

“They definitely sped us and unfortunately we didn’t keep our composure and we threw the ball away,” Lansdale Catholic coach Tom Lonergan said. “The first quarter killed us. We struggled keeping players in front of us. I give them a lot of credit. They sped us up and they turned us over. Every 50-50 ball they got them. They played really well, and played really hard.

“We have to be able to take care of the ball, and we have to communicate when they doubled down on our big. That left people open on the perimeter, but we weren’t communicating.”

Peterson’s message has found a home. Scott and Easley have embraced this new offense, even though they have had to give up a piece of their game. They are giving up the ball more, and are trusting their teammates more than they have in the past.

“This helped us and made it a little easier for states,” Easley said. “We have a chemistry. I know I can trust my teammates to knock down shots. We would force things in the past. In time, we have learned patience. I like this offense a lot.”

With Neumann-Goretti running its “chaos offense,” Scott saw a crease and penetrated the lane with just under three minutes to play and the Saints clinging to a 51-47 lead. As she drove, three Lansdale Catholic defenders ran her, when she hit teammate Zion Coston open underneath for an easy layup and a 53-47 lead with 2:26 left.

“I like our offense and we get to every spot, especially our man offense and I was sold on this,” Scott said. “I don’t know if I would have made that pass (to Coston) underneath a few years ago. We are moving a lot. We are all fast, so it does make it easy for us to move around.

“This is my last year. I have to give everything my all. I won (a state championship) as a freshman and I want to go out a winner as a senior. I’ve grown. Me and Carryn have gotten smarter in tough moments.”  

It easy to look over tiny Neumann-Goretti before the season, with Catholic League contenders Archbishop Wood, Archbishop Carroll, Cardinal O’Hara and Lansdale Catholic all lurking for the league title.

But it may not be so easy in the next few months to ignore the Saints’ chaos.

By Quarter

Lansdale Catholic (11-2, 3-1 Catholic League):  14 | 16  |  13  | 11 ||  54

Neumann-Goretti (10-2, 3-0 Catholic League): 21 | 12 | 13 | 12 ||  58

Scoring
Lansdale Catholic: Sanyiah Littlejohn 17, Nadia Yemola 15, Grace McDonough 13, Ali Kaltenbacher 5, Aubrey Mobley 2.

Neumann-Goretti: Amya Scott 15, Carryn Easley 14, Kamora Berry 12, Reginna Baker 11, Chrisette King 4, Zion Coston 2.

Joseph Santoliquito is an 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 BlueSky here.