City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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EAST WHITELAND >> As Brittany Whalen climbed the ladder, a chorus of “Cut it down” echoed repeatedly behind her.

Whalen, who was Brittany Merkle when she played at Immaculata and graduated in its Class of 2015, was going to give her players what they wanted. The second year Mighty Macs head coach cut the last few strands free of the rim then held it aloft, putting her team into a frenzy.

Immaculata felt like it had all the requisite pieces for a special season and in front of a packed Alumnae Hall on Saturday, realized it.

The top-seeded Mighty Macs downed No. 3 seed Neumann 63-46 in the Atlantic East Conference championship, Immaculata winning its first conference title since 2022 and qualifying as an automatic bid to the Division III NCAA Tournament.

“We met in August and we had a goal in mind which was to host a conference championship on our home floor,” Whalen said. “This group of girls, they just had resilience and grit throughout. It’s long days and long hours in the gym but it was so worth it to get to this point.

“To cap it off and win a championship here, it’s so surreal.”

A capacity crowd in Alumnae Hall – even auxiliary bleachers brought in for the day were overflowing – didn’t need long to let loose. Immaculata won the opening tip, freshman Carly Coleman pushing it in the direction of fifth-year guard Tessa Liberatoscioli who went right in for a layup four seconds into the game to elicit the first of many loud cheers on the afternoon.

“It wasn’t really expected but I kind of got the chills from it,” Liberatoscioli, a Great Valley graduate, said. “Knowing how many people are here to support us, it meant a lot.”

Neumann, which closed a resilient season at 16-10 overall, took the early emotional surge and followed standout senior Emily DuPont to a brief 6-4 lead. The Knights, who lost senior Lauren Klieber to a knee injury on Dec. 28 – the senior averaging 21.8 ppg at the time – battled the entire game with DuPont, also a Great Valley graduate, posting nine points and 13 rebounds, senior Aubrie Breisblatt (Phoenixville) adding nine and fifth-year Jaqueline Wardrop putting up a team-high 13 points.

After Neumann took the lead, the Mighty Macs scored the next 11 points, a layup by Liberatoscioli giving them the lead back for good at 8-6 midway through the quarter. Liberatoscioli, one of the team’s two fifth-year seniors along with Victoria Foster, recalled the extra-heavy offseason packet Whalen had sent the entire team and that late summer meeting laying the groundwork for this season.

There’s still an NCAA Tournament appearance to make, but being able to finish her final season with a perfect home record and win her last home game was significant. 

“There’s no other way I’d want to go out,” Liberatoscioli said. “It’s my last year ever playing a sport, my teammates wanted it as much as I did and you really could see it.”

Immaculata’s success this season has been driven by its balance and its defense. Saturday, the Mighty Macs were ramped up on the defensive end as they forced 24 turnovers including 16 steals and blocked 10 shots.

A team that had three players averaging double-digit scoring on the season again had three double-digit scorers with junior Olivia Ettore claiming championship MVP honors off her game-high 14 point effort. Liberatoscioli added 10 points and Coleman put together another outstanding effort, the Cardinal O’Hara alum recording a double-double of 13 points and 12 rebounds.

While Coleman – who won a state title in her final high school game last year – was initially hesitant to come to Immaculata, she found it was the perfect fit thanks to the team’s upperclassmen leaders.

“Every day in the gym, they made it not feel like practice, they really boosted my confidence, and they made everything fun,” Coleman, who also played soccer this fall, said. “I can’t thank the seniors enough. It’s been like a dream come true this whole season and being at Immaculata has been an amazing experience so far.”

Coleman had a solid first half but the first-year forward took control in the third quarter. The forward, who has nine double-doubles on the season including the last three games, had seven points, five rebounds, an assist and a block in the quarter.

Similar to what she had in high school, Coleman described the reason behind Immaculata’s success as simply being a group of players who wanted to get better every day.

“Being at O’Hara you’re in that atmosphere a lot so I wasn’t that nervous coming into the game but having it at the college level is just indescribable,” Coleman said. “You have the whole community behind you, not even many people that I know that well, knowing they’re behind you is a great motivator to have.”

The team’s other fifth-year player this season, grad student transfer Alyssa Long, is no stranger to winning titles. The Springfield (Delco) grad won District 1 titles in basketball and lacrosse and a PIAA lacrosse title in high school, then went to the highest level and won an NCAA title playing lacrosse at the University of North Carolina.

Saturday, Whalen asked Long to use her big-game experience in any way she could. It was an assignment the scrappy guard understood to the fullest and within 10 seconds of her subbing in during the first quarter, Long was already on the floor fighting for a tie-up call at midcourt.

“This is special, no matter what level or what sport, every time you get on a court or a field and you’ve worked tirelessly for six months with a team, winning is special,” Long said. “I’m so proud and so excited that I got to do it with this group.

“From our first team meeting and playing pick-up in August and September, it’s been so much love and respect and admiration for each other. We just genuinely want to see each other succeed so much and that’s what goes into a really good basketball team.”

Long fit seamlessly into the team. She and senior Abbey Boyer became fast friends, the two sharing a hug after Long had clipped her piece of the net and before Boyer scaled the ladder to get hers.

Boyer, a Spring-Ford alum who fell just short of a state title in her final high school game while playing alongside Lucy Olsen, was a part of Immaculata’s 2022 AEC title team. The point guard, who has put together a career year this season, didn’t have a huge offensive game Saturday but never felt like she had to.

“We’re pushing each other, we’re making each other better, we always say we’re getting one percent better at each practice,” Boyer said. “It’s an amazing feeling, I’m just blessed to be here right, be a part of this and be a champion.”

The Immaculata women's basketball team won the 2024-25 Atlantic East Conference tournament following an unbeaten regular season in the conference. The Mighty Macs went unbeaten at Alumnae Hall and qualified for the NCAA Tournament.

A layup by Neumann freshman Jenna Aponik (Germantown Academy) cut the lead to 48-40 with 8:41 to play in the fourth quarter. Immaculata came back with the next seven, an and-one by Riley Cassidy pushing the lead to 55-40 near the midpoint of the quarter.

The dagger came from Long with 2:37 left. Starting on the left wing and with the shot clock winding down, Long maneuvered around a screen then off her left-handed dribble, stuck a step-back jumper just inside the arc to make it 61-45.

Backpedaling up the floor, Long could only give a shrug. While it invoked the image of another North Carolina product – Michael Jordan’s famous shrug against the Trailblazers in the 1992 NBA Finals – Long was truly surprised the move had worked out.

“If you know my basketball ability, lefty step-back is not in my arsenal,” Long said. “I was like ‘I don’t know how that went in, sorry guys.’ I have been hyping up my step-back all week, they never go in but I think to end my basketball career that was the basketball gods saying, ‘after 23 years of athletics, we’ll give you one.’”

During their summer workouts and pick-up games and moving into preseason, the Mighty Macs knew they had a strong group. As her team navigated a nonleague slate that included matchups with teams from the Centennial Conference, MAC and Landmark while competing and winning, Whalen felt that August goal could become a reality.

Boyer admitted it didn’t really sink in with her until about the halfway point of AEC play after Immaculata had gotten through it unbeaten. Saturday’s win marked the team’s 14th straight win overall and gave them a spotless AEC record combined between the regular and postseasons.

“We knew we were going to be good, but not ‘12-0 in the conference’ good,” Liberatoscioli said.

Senior Reese Mullins, the team’s leading scorer this year, had nine points, five rebounds and two assists while Cassidy, an Episcopal Academy product, provided eight points, five boards and a couple helpers off the bench. Long, who had seven points and two assists, added five steals off the bench while Coleman and Liberatoscioli each blocked three shots.

After she’d cut down the net and placed it around her neck, Whalen held up a light blue Immaculata shirt and tapped her heart. Her staff features three other former Mighty Macs players, collectively instilling a winning mindset.

“It’s all about mentality and we kind of preach that culture,” Whalen said. “It’s not one or two scorers that are the end-all, be-all that make up our team, it’s so many other things you can contribute on the court in your minutes.

“They just understand their roles and star in their roles every time they step on the floor.”

Immaculata will await its selection into the NCAA Tournament bracket. For Long, it’ll be her fifth NCAA Tournament experience in five years playing college sports following four tournament appearances at UNC in lacrosse. It’s not something she takes for granted and the future teacher couldn’t have asked for a better way for her athletic career to conclude.

“Getting to championship games isn’t easy, yeah we were 10-0 but playoff games are 0-0, we easily could have lost in the semifinal or this game, so winning a championship and getting here, it’s something to celebrate,” Long said. “Getting to March Madness, it’s what you grow up watching and dreaming of in basketball. I couldn’t be more excited to get another day with this team.”

Liberatoscioli recalled in 2022 when the Mighty Macs travelled to Angola, Indiana and played Trine in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. While the fifth-year guard is looking forward to that experience again, nothing was going to top the moment of winning a conference title on her home floor.

Liberatosicoli, Boyer and Long huddled together on the bench after Whalen had subbed all the starters off to a rousing ovation in the last few minutes. As the final seconds started to wind off, they all stood together and it was all they could do to not rush the floor early.

“It was the longest 10 seconds of my life, really,” Liberatoscioli said. “When the buzzer finally went off, got the chills again, just an incredible feeling.”