City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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LANSDALE >> This was no time to walk the ball up the floor.

With the Lansdale Catholic gym rattling in the wake of a go-ahead three in overtime, Cardinal O’Hara seized the opportunity to get down the floor and get up a shot in a hurry. Almost as quickly as the energy had tilted to the home side of the gym, it swung right back to the visitors thanks to the latest in a line of big shots from the Lions’ pride on Thursday night.

Natalie DiBlasi put No. 5 O’Hara ahead for good, the junior adding just one of a multitude of big moments from the entire roster as the Lions edged No. 4 Lansdale Catholic 41-38 in overtime of their PCL girls’ basketball quarterfinal.

“It was nerve-wracking, I got a wide-open shot and had to take it,” DiBlasi said. “I just hoped to make it and give us a good lead so we could lock it in.”

DiBlasi’s shot, a long two that initially went on the scoreboard as a three, gave O’Hara a 39-38 lead just a few seconds after LC’s Nadia Yemola had buried a three to put the hosts ahead with 2:23 left in the extra period. Getting to that shot took plenty of contributions from her teammates.

O’Hara senior Molly Rullo led her team with 12 points and 10 rebounds, the Drexel recruit leaving briefly in the third quarter after rolling her ankle but returning quickly and gutting it out. During that window, senior Brigid MacGillivray rose to the occasion, scoring all seven of her points in a strong third-quarter effort.

Rullo, a newly minted three-time first team All-PCL pick and the only returning starter from last season’s state title team, has done a great job of leading the Lions this season and Thursday served as a chance for the team’s younger players to show how much they’ve grown. DiBlasi had seven points, sophomore Brigidanne Donohue only scored two but had seven assists and freshman Catie Doogan had one of her best games of the season, adding nine points on a trio of threes off the bench. 

Not to get left out was the moment sophomore Leah Hudak had when she drilled a three in front of the O’Hara bench to tie things up 35-35 with a minute left in regulation.

“We do a drill every day where you make an extra pass and shoot a three, I saw it go from B-Mac to B-Anne and just thought ‘one more,’” Lions coach Chrissie Doogan said. “That’s the drill we do all the time and Leah was ready to knock it down.”

Hudak made her first shot of the game, a three, then missed the next four including a pretty clean look at a longball earlier in the fourth. Chrissie Doogan has a credo of “Shooters shoot,” and she encourages anyone who is open to be confident in shooting, so her players sometimes repeat that phrase.

In a raucous bandbox gym, Hudak admitted she didn’t hear anything in her head as Donohue’s pass found her but she was confident to take the look.

“I’d missed my last shot but those shots were out the window, I was open and I was going to shoot it,” Hudak said. “I had confidence in myself because our coaches give us confidence in ourselves.

“I was locked in, I didn’t really hear anything. I just shot it, it felt good and it went in.”

Lansdale Catholic got a superb effort from senior Sanyiah Littlejohn, the George Mason recruit going for 26 points. The problem for the Crusaders was that they didn't get much offense from anywhere else throughout the game.

Only three other LC players scored and they combined for just 12 points. Just as telling to Crusaders coach Tom Lonergan was the team’s three free throw attempts. LC has really struggled to score the ball in its past few games and not getting to the foul line to generate points makes it an even harder climb no matter how well the defense is playing.

“It’s not our defense, it’s our offense,” Lonergan said. “We told them at halftime we were impatient with our offense which is what led to so few shots taken in the first half. Second half we did a much, much better job with it. We had 14 shots in the third quarter alone which is as many as we had in the whole first half.

“You love that old adage that defense wins championships but in our case, we need some offense to do it too.”

LC’s season is not done, but the Crusaders will have a lengthy wait until their District 12 game for third place in Class 4A

Thursday marked the second meeting for the two teams in the last 16 days, LC’s 51-45 win on the same floor on Jan. 28 a big reason why the Lions were the road team for the quarterfinals. In that first matchup, Doogan and her staff felt like the Lions weren’t tough enough on the defensive end and they put it to their relatively young team to be stronger.

The kids did alright, even if they weren’t perfect, they fought through. Whether it was the spell where Rullo was out or in the midst of a furious spell of pressure from the Crusaders that turned the tide late in the fourth quarter, Doogan saw her young players find a way.

“We were up seven and they made the run, it’s like ‘here we go again,’” Doogan said. “You have two sophomore guards trying to break their pressure and they hung with it. Brigidanne was looking at me at one point like ‘call a timeout,’ I had to remember they’re sophomores and haven’t been in this type of situation with the crowd and they just really handled it.”

Rullo went out with 5:20 left in the third, LC went on a run to take a 25-22 lead then O’Hara called a timeout with 4:17 left in the frame. Doogan saw some unsure faces in that huddle and urged her players to go out and just play until the senior came back.

The Lions got Rullo back with 2:52 to go in the frame and closed it on an 8-0 run, the last five coming from MacGillivray.

“We can’t rely on Molly to score all our points or to do everything so when we took that timeout, everyone realized it was time to step up,” Hudak said. “It’s never all just on Molly, we all need to do our part and step up. We picked each other up.”

The Lions at the end of the first three quarters and they were maintaining a 32-25 advantage after a pair of Rullo free throws with 6:35 left in the game. Then, Yemola turned a steal into a layup and LC had a little life.

Littlejohn scored on a drive, then O’Hara turned the ball over on three straight possessions with LC turning all of them into baskets as part of an 8-0 run that made it 33-32 when Littlejohn sliced to the rim with 3:02 to play.

One more basket from the first team All-PCL senior gave the Crusaders a 35-32 lead and the clock rapidly approaching a minute left.

“First time we played them, I thought we walked the ball up the court a lot after they scored,” Doogan said. “We tried to be the aggressor and push them. They’re good when they set up in their defense and he does a great job of mixing up their defense, so anything you can do to keep them off balance a little bit.”

Doogan had a timeout but she saw LC’s rotation scrambling a bit and trusted her players to make the extra pass they so often drill, so she held off on calling it. Her players rewarded her with a terrific sequence that started in the right corner and took four passes connecting all five players around the arc until it found Hudak in the left corner for the equalizer.

“We’ve grown and improved a lot, I think we all had confidence, but now we all have even more than we did,” Hudak said. “We’re a young team, we still have a lot to learn but we’re getting there with each practice and each game.

“We’ve developed over the season, we’re all picking each other up. We’re one team, it’s everyone, if you make a mistake, it’s out the window and you’re looking to the next play.”

Rullo opened OT with a hoop off an inbound but Yemola responded with a moonball three that ignited the LC student section. There was plenty of time left but Rullo spotted DiBlasi and hit her teammate for an early and open look.

“We knew we had to go quick,” DiBlasi said. “We took coming into the playoffs as a reset. We’d been struggling to close out tough games at the end but I really think we’re starting to figure it out.”

DiBlasi, who added a big foul shot with 1:27 left that made it a three-point game, said it was “relieving” to make that long jumper and said it was her favorite shot of the season.

“I got a bigger role this year and I wanted to step it up and get our team to Villanova,” DiBlasi said. “We’ve had to find our confidence and know we can fill in bigger roles on the court this year.

“It’s good for us, we’re all stepping up and we’re all taking our part in the team.”

By Quarter
CO: 12 | 8 | 10 | 5 | 6 || 41
LC: 7 | 7 | 11 | 10 | 3 || 38

Scoring
CO: Molly Rullo 12, Catie Doogan 9, Brigid MacGillivray 7, Leah Hudak 6, Natalie DiBlasi 5, Brigidanne Donahue 2

LC: Sanyiah Littlejohn 26, Nadia Yemola 5, Grace McDonough 4, Allie Esposito 3

~~~

In the other PCL Quarterfinals:

No. 1 Neumann-Goretti 70, No. 8 Conwell-Egan 26

The top-seeded Saints made it 11 PCL wins in 11 tries as they rolled past the Eagles. Neumann-Goretti, which is pursuing its first PCL title since 2015, is in its first semifinals since the 2021-22 season. The Saints will take on Cardinal O’Hara on Monday, Neumann-Goretti winning 51-50 in the regular season.

No. 2 Archbishop Wood 60, No. 7 Nazareth Academy 30

Emily Knouse rained in seven threes on her way to 23 points as the defending PCL champions powered back to the semifinals. Ryan Carter added 19 points for the Vikings, who got an early spark from Emma Yogis’ nine points off the bench. Wood will be seeking its third straight trip to The Palestra.

No. 3 Archbishop Carroll 60, No. 6 West Catholic 37

Alexis Eberz scored 22 and her younger sister Kayla added 12 as the Patriots made their way back to the semifinals. Olivia Nardi added 10 for Carroll, last year’s PCL runner-up, the Patriots seeing eight players score. Carroll will get a title game rematch against Archbishop Wood for a chance to go back to The Palestra.