City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

––

ROYERSFORD — Kamora Berry winced, unsure if she heard it right back in February just before a Neumann-Goretti practice. So, Neumann-Goretti coach Andrea Peterson repeated it: Take your sneakers and socks off.

Berry, the Saints’ 5-foot-7 junior sharpshooter, had been in a three-game shooting slump. Peterson thought she had a cure by having Berry shoot in her bare feet during a drill. It forced Berry to lift more off the balls of her feet. Berry quickly noticed that almost every shot went in.

Before the Saints’ PIAA Class 4A second-round game against playoff rival Wyomissing on Wednesday night at Spring-Ford High School, Berry took her routine on the road, taking pregame shots in her socks.

It took a while, but the trick worked again, as Berry nailed four crucial threes in the third quarter, enabling Neumann-Goretti to finally get by District 3 champion Wyomissing, 58-45, with strong defensive help from junior Zion Coston and Crissette King on the Spartans’ stellar Albany-bound Amaya Stewart, who finished with a game-high 25.

The Saints (23-4) will play District 2 champion Scranton Prep (25-1), 74-36 winners over Allentown Central Catholic, in the PIAA Class 4A state quarterfinals on Saturday at a site and time to be determined.

This marks the first time the Neumann-Goretti girls’ program has reached the Class 4A quarterfinals, after being stopped the previous two years by Stewart and Wyomissing in the second round.

Over the last three years, the two programs have built such a respectful camaraderie that as the finals seconds ticked away, Peterson, the Saints’ coaching staff and numerous Neumann-Goretti players went over and hugged Stewart before she was able to reach her own bench.

This is the first time, overall, in which the Saints have reached the state quarterfinals since 2022, when Neumann-Goretti won the Class 3A state championship when senior starting guards Amya Scott and Carryn Easley were freshmen.

This has been Scott and Easley’s team the last two years, but the Saints would not have gotten this far without 5-foot-10 sophomore Reginna Baker and the significant contributions by role players like Berry, Colson and King.

“Kamora, Zion and Crissette played a major role for us, because everyone we face are going to attack Amya, Carryn and Reginna,” Peterson said. “That’s a given. Amaya Stewart is an unbelievable player and we knew what we had to do to contain her. We worked on it with limiting her touches. She is going to score. We had to apply pressure to the guards to deny Amaya the ball.

“In the second half, we turned to Mo (Berry), because everyone on our team has the green light to shoot. Earlier this season, she was struggling with her shot, and she was shooting too much from her heels. Everyone thought it was funny when I told her I wanted her to shoot in her bare feet, she had to lift her feet. Once we started that, she has taken off.”

King, a 5-10 freshman, did well against Stewart fronting her.

“I had to get out of my head, and tried to stay in front of her, and it was pretty physical,” King said. “Amaya is amazing. I had to play my game.”

Some of that defensive responsibility fell on Coston, who has been an unsung contributor to the Saints all season. The junior does all the dirty work that translates into winning, like rebounding, playing defense and giving up a lot of size to players like Stewart.

“I played with Amaya this summer, so I knew what I was getting into,” Colson said. “I wasn’t intimidated by her. She cooked me. But I was up for the challenge. I know my role. I have to do all the dirty work. It’s the little things that matter. We have enough players who can score.”

Like Berry.

She, too, defers to Easley, Scott and Baker. But when they are not on, like they were at times Wednesday night, Berry can make a team pay. The Spartans tried doubling the smaller Easley and Scott at the top of the circle, preventing them from driving the lane, while leaving the wing open for Berry.

She scored all 12 of her points, and 12 of Neumann-Goretti’s 13 third-quarter points, on treys.

Each time it looked like the Spartans were nearing Neumann-Goretti, it was Berry putting more cushion on the Saints’ lead.

“Shooting in my socks has become my new routine before games, because I’m shooting better off the balls of my feet,” Berry said. “I have brought the routine with me. My shot was going to come. They told me at halftime to keep shooting. We lost to Wyomissing my freshman and sophomore years, and we had a big chip on our shoulder about this game. We couldn’t let them beat us three years in a row.”

Neumann-Goretti 58, Wyomissing 45

By Quarter
Neumann-Goretti (23-4):  10 | 19 | 14 | 15 || 58

Wyomissing (22-5):  12 | 8 | 10 | 15 || 45

Scoring
Neumann-Goretti: Amya Scott 15, Carryn Easley 14, Reginna Baker 14, Kamora Berry 12, Haniyyah Solis-Morgan 3.

Wyomissing: Amaya Stewart 25, Alexis Hardy 10, Audrey Hurleman 8, Kacey Maggs 2.

~~~

Villa Joseph Marie’s season ends on loss to Northern Lebanon

There were four lead changes in the first 90 seconds of the fourth quarter, before the Vikings, the District 3 No. 3-seed, went on a mini 5-0 run in a game in which points came at a premium.

The Jems (13-13) got within 37-35 with 2:37 play, and did not score again for almost two minutes, as Northern Lebanon closed with a 10-2 run.

“Their matchup defense was really nasty,” Northern Lebanon coach Ken Battistelli said about the Jems. “I wouldn’t say we are the greatest offensive machine in the history of time, but they make sure everyone is covered without complete man-to-man principles. It was a tough defense to find holes. I think instead of trying to analyze it, we used basic principles of moving without the ball and being ready and decisive on the catch.

“I don’t care what defense you are in, when you force vulnerability. We started to be better attacking one-on-ones, and that started to work when we attacked one-on-one.”

Northern Lebanon 47, Villa Joseph Marie 37

By Quarter

Villa Joseph Marie (13-13): 5 |  9 |  8  |  15 || 37

Northern Lebanon (23-3): 6 |  4  |  14 |  23 ||  47

Scoring
Villa Joseph Marie: Riley Deal 12, Avery Akright 8, Grace Pizzica 7, Lucy Jasionis 6, Vasiliki Hadgimallis 4.

Northern Lebanon: Olivia Shutter 16, Kasey Weimer 15, Saorise Phillips 11, Hayley Sheroky 3, Mackenzie Miller 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.