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Saunders has career night as Garnet Valley girls down Haverford High

01/31/2025, 12:00am EST
By Josh Verlin

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)

GLEN MILLS — Savannah Saunders will be rooting for Rian Dotsey in the fall. The two are both headed to Saint Joseph’s next year, Saunders for lacrosse, Dotsey for basketball. 

For now, however, Saunders has a different job: shut Dotsey down and send her home empty-handed. 


Savannah Saunders (above) had a career-high 16 points on Thursday night. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Garnet Valley senior wing was one of the key defenders on the Haverford High star in a battle atop the Central League on Thursday night, GV knowing it needed to limit Dotsey’s effectiveness to gain revenge on its only loss of the season. And with Saunders doing her part in an impressive defensive team effort while also leading the Jaguars in scoring, Garnet Valley came away with a key 43-26 win over the Fords.

Saunders scored a career-high 16 points, leading Garnet Valley in the scoring column for the first time all season. The 5-foot-7 wing, normally a defensive specialist for the Jaguars, knocked down her first shot, a 3-pointer, setting her off on a night where she connected six times from the floor and on all three of her foul shots. 

“I don’t know [what happened],” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I was just feeling more confident, usually I’m not as confident. I feel like just let it all go and just (was) confident with the ball.”

A midfielder for Garnet’s successful lacrosse squad, Saunders is normally the last scoring option in Garnet Valley’s talented starting five. Lafayette commit Haylie Adamski and senior point guard Kylie Mulholland, both 1,000-point scorers, are the clear primary bucket-getters; Adamski’s younger sisters, sophomore twins Addison Adamski and Kylie Adamski are both talented youngsters who have regularly contributed in double figures. 

Saunders’ role is to do everything else: play defense, rebound, pass, and score when open. She has especially good chemistry with Mulholland, the two meeting as classmates in first grade and having played together everywhere from the Malvern youth league through high school and with the Delco Goats, but she’s the glue for the rest of the Jaguars, too.


Saunders (above) buried this 3-pointer to start her night. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“She’s not our ‘scorer’ over the years, she doesn’t need to be,” Garnet Valley coach Joe Woods said, “She’s a hell of a defensive player and a hell of an athlete, one of our co-captains, does a terrific job.”

There was no doubt her effort Thursday helped her squad keep it rolling as it enters the toughest part of the season. Haverford beat Garnet Valley 47-28 on Dec. 17, the one blemish on an otherwise stellar season for the Jaguars (19-1, 13-1 Central League). Garnet’s won the 14 since, including the last 10 Central League games by double digits. 

Along with Saunders, Garnet Valley got a strong game from the oldest Adamski sister, who scored 12 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out four assists; Mulholand only scored five points but chipped in five rebounds, four assists and four steals of her own.

The Jaguars and Fords (16-3, 12-2) came into the evening two of three one-loss teams in the Central, along with Conestoga. Pioneers head coach AJ Thompson and several of his players were in the gym to take in the action, his team playing at Garnet Valley on Saturday and hosting Haverford on Tuesday. 

If Garnet Valley beats Conestoga, assuming it also beats Ridley in the season finale — the Jaguars beat the Raiders by 26 earlier this month — then it’s the top seed in the Central League playoffs. That means an automatic bye into the league semifinals, and even more importantly avoids Conestoga and Haverford until the league championship game. 

“It’d be nice to be in the top two, because you get a first-round bye in the Central League playoffs,” Woods said. “In that regard, that would be nice, if we can get that. But it’s always nice to take it one game at a time and each team’s a different team, and Conestoga’s a great team.”

Haverford, which had a seven-game win streak overall and eight-game conference win streak snapped in the loss, had its worst offensive output of the season. The Fords shot 10-of-44 (22.7%) from the floor, the Garnet defense finding great success with a 2-3 zone Woods went to in the second quarter, sticking with it the rest of the way.

Garnet Valley jumped out to a 17-9 lead after one quarter and was up 22-11 after a slow second on both sides; with Saunders scoring nine in the third quarter, including an and-one layup, Garnet Valley opened up a 39-17 lead and then ran a lot of clock to get through a low-scoring fourth.

Dotsey, Haverford’s star 6-foot-1 forward, got in foul trouble early, picking up her third with two minutes left in the second quarter, though she still played a majority of the game. She had nine points by the midway point of the third but missed her final seven shots, five of which were triples, on a night where Haverford went 2-of-19 from deep. 

The Garnet defense collapsed on Dotsey (25) every time she got the ball in the paint. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Every time she touched the ball in the paint she was swarmed by multiple defenders, and the Fords’ supporting cast couldn’t do enough to take pressure off her.

“I think we were outplayed tonight, I think it’s as simple as that,” Haverford coach Lauren Pellicane said. “Obviously they’ve been paying really well, they’re a talented team and they came ready to play. But they did everything well — they beat us down the floor, which was disappointing to see [...] they beat us to 50/50 balls, in every category I thought we were unfortunately outplayed. We’ve got to turn the page, have to go back to practice tomorrow and onto the next game.”

The Fords play at Lower Merion on Saturday before traveling to Conestoga in the regular-season finale. The No. 6 team in the District 1 rankings coming into the night, they’ll likely need to win both to secure a top-eight seed and first-round bye. 

Garnet Valley won’t have that worry. The Jaguars are the No. 1 seed in the unofficial rankings, that opening-round bye all but secured, as they attempt to better last year’s quarterfinal loss and state semifinal defeat. 

“It’s our senior season, so we just really want to go out there and play and win,” Saunders said. “It’s probably the last time I’ll play [basketball competitively] so I just really want to go out there and just have fun.”

By Quarter
GV:    17  |   5   |  17  |   4   ||  43
HHS:  9   |   2   |   6   |   9   ||  26

Shooting
GV: 15-35 FG (2-11 3PT), 11-13 FT
HHS: 10-44 FG (2-19 3PT), 4-7 FT

Scoring
GV: Savannah Saunders 16, Haylie Adamski 12, Addison Adamski 7, Kylie Mulholland 5, Kylie Adamski 3

HHS: Rian Dotsey 9, Mya Foley 6, Grace Maloney 3, Maura Gilroy 3, Keira Hanson 3, Natalie Wright 2


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