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Besachio helps Archbishop Wood girls top Lansdale Catholic

01/14/2025, 11:45pm EST
By Josh Verlin

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)

WARMINSTER — It was all too fitting that Colleen Besachio’s first-ever Archbishop Wood home game came against Lansdale Catholic. 

After all, the Vikings’ junior wing is the granddaughter of the Crusaders’ 44-year football coach, the late Jim Algeo, with a mother and eight aunts and uncles who are all LC grads — all but one of whom played basketball. Besachio came to Wood last fall after a freshman year at Upper Dublin but missed her entire sophomore year with a torn ACL, explaining the brace she wears on her right knee. 


Colleen Besachio (above) knocked down four 3-pointers in Tuesday's win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

So Tuesday night was the first time she took to the floor against the school she grew up surrounded by love for, creating quite the conflicting feelings for Mary Eileen Besachio and all of her siblings. 

“My parents are just always rooting for me,” Colleen Besachio said. “The rivalry hasn’t come up. Maybe a little bit of my aunts were [teasing me] a little on the side about it, but it was all love, it was all love.”

The eighth of nine siblings, Mary graduated from LC in 1991, her name on the 1,000-point banner on the wall, then played collegiately at James Madison.

“We get some razzing,” her mother admitted of her siblings, “and we’re always cheering for LC. But of course, they’re always very supportive of Colleen, even when Wood’s playing LC.”

Conflict or not, the current high school hooper knew that the school rivalry only goes so far. Family wins over all. 

“Oh yeah, for sure they were cheering for Wood,” Colleen said. “They were cheering for Wood.”

So the Algeo-Besaschio family was no doubt feeling happy, if not slightly internally conflicted, when Colleen Besachio scored a season-high 16 points and grabbed five rebounds as Wood downed Lansdale, 53-44, to stay unbeaten five games into Catholic League play.

It was Wood’s first home game of the season, the Vikings playing mostly in out-of-area showcases during December. A game on Jan. 2 against St. Hubert’s was supposed to be the Vikings’ home opener, but a gas leak that day forced the game to move to Hubert’s. 

Combined with Beaschio’s injury last year, that made Tuesday night the first time she had gotten to play in front of a friendly crowd in a Wood uniform. She picked a great time — in addition to the high-profile Catholic League game, the Vikings were honoring ‘21 grad and all-time leading scorer Kaitlyn Orihel, the VIllanova senior bringing most of her teammates and coaches along with her; on top of that, it was grade school night, with a bunch of elementary school girls’ teams filling out the packed gymnasium. 


Besachio goes for the block during the fourth quarter of Tuesday's win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“We played in the preseason [at home] against GA, but [this was the] first real home game,” she said. “So it was really fun [...]  it’s just such a great atmosphere to be in. All the different schools and the culture of the Catholic League, it’s really cool to play in. I just love the energy.”

The 5-foot-11 wing came out firing, hitting three first-half 3-pointers to help break open a low-scoring, defensive-minded contest. She hit back-to-back triples during a big Wood second quarter, stepping into one on the right wing and then adding another one on a feed from Emily Knouse to put the Vikings (10-4, 5-0 PCL) up 22-5, helping them take a 26-9 lead into the break as the Crusaders (11-3, 3-2 PCL) were just 4-of-20 from the floor in the opening half. 

Led by George Mason commit Senyiah Littlejohn (18 points), Lansdale Catholic battled back in the third quarter, Littlejohn driving the lane and getting to the line over and over again, then hitting a one-footed 3-pointer coming off a screen just a split-second ahead of the buzzer sounding to cut the lead to six. 

The Crusaders got as close as 40-35, on another Littlejohn 3-pointer midway through the fourth quarter, but Wood responded. A bucket from sophomore Ryan Carter (game-high 19 points) preceded a Knouse 3-pointer from the corner off a Carter assist, putting Wood up 45-37 with 2:20 to play.

Following a LC score, Besachio all but slammed the door shut, driving a wide-open lane for a left-handed layup to make it 47-39 with 1:36 to play. 

“I was just going with the flow of the game,” she said. “I just saw the girl just went to the opposite side of me, so I just ripped, saw a wide-open lane and I just took it.”

Carter, who picked up an offer from North Carolina this week to add to her pile, sealed the game at the line by hitting all four attempts in the final minute. She also added five rebounds and three assists; Knouse, a St. Joe’s commit, had eight points, nine rebounds, and three assists. 

“ We started to foul and get beat a little bit in the second half and that let them climb back in, credit to Littlejohn who made some tough shots,” Wood coach Mike McDonald said. “My assistants were imploring me to use timeouts and I thought this is a good time of year to fight through it and not bail them out. They played well enough defensively in the first half to get us that cushion, and they did enough to get the win over a really good team in Lansdale Catholic.”

Besachio and Wood will stay home for a Friday night game against Cardinal O’Hara (10-4, 4-1), another one of its top contenders for the Catholic League crown. That game will tip at 5:30 PM in the Wood boys gym, with the Viking and Lions boys playing afterwards. 

By Quarter
AW:  8   |  18  |  12  |  15  ||  53
LC:   3   |   6   |  23  |  12  ||  44

Shooting
AW: 17-48 FG (9-30 3PT), 10-12 FT
LC: 14-38 FG (4-12 3PT), 12-20 FT

Scoring
AW: Ryan Carter 19, Colleen Beshacio 16, Emily Knouse 8, Sophia Topakas 4, Makayla Finnegan 3, Emma Yogis 3

LC: Sanyiah Littlejohn 18, Allie Esposito 8, Aubrey Mobley 6, Ali Kaltenbacher 6, Grace McDonough 4, Nadia Yemola 2


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