City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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EASTON >> Heart is everything for Olivia Voshell.

The Strath Haven senior plays basketball with plenty of heart and it’s a trait her teammates picked up this season as well. So while she and the Panthers were at a serious size disadvantage against Crestwood on Saturday, they knew their heart would keep them in the game.

Strath Haven’s season ended in the PIAA Class 5A quarterfinals Saturday but only after the Panthers had pushed the Comets to the limit, Crestwood scraping out a 54-47 win at Easton Area Middle School.

“You can’t really compare height to heart,” Voshell said. “We have some of the biggest hearts. Maddie and Kenzie (Fanning) are five-foot-nothing and they come out and act like they’re eight feet tall. I think it’s just coming in and not being afraid.”

A couple weeks back, Voshell and her mom Colleen went and got matching tattoos. On her left forearm, the senior has an EKG readout – a medical test that measures the heartbeat – of her grandmother Rosalina Casey, who passed in 2022.

“She was one of my best friends, I hold her very close to my heart so that’s why it’s on my left side and when my mom and I went to get them, we had a little bit of her ashes put in so we could take a little of her with us,” Voshell said. “I think when I look down and I see her there, it reminds me I have a little bit of support always with me.”

Crestwood starts a 6-foot-1 post in Kate Gallagher, two 6-foot forwards in Charlie Hiller and Kendall Petrosky and a 5-foot-11 guard in Jackie Gallagher, so the Comets just looked bigger when the teams came out for warm-ups. Yet it was the Panthers, and their twin 5-foot freshmen guards Kenzie and Maddie Fanning, that certainly had more heart in the first half as they raced down plenty of offensive rebounds that Crestwood didn’t seem ready for them to grab.

Strath Haven was also making shots early after Crestwood went ahead 11-6 on a 5-of-5 start from the floor, the Panthers came back to take a 13-12 lead after a quarter. Maddie Fanning attacked her way to 12 points and when senior Kate Fox found senior Maryella Gill for a three in the closing seconds, the Panthers only trailed 26-25 at halftime.

“I’m going to remember how hard we worked, we’re not the biggest team but we all played for each other,” Fanning, who led Strath Haven with 21 points, said. “That’s what we’re all going to remember.

“It’s all mental, you can’t be afraid, there’s always going to be people who are taller than you or people who are better than you but you can’t be afraid.”

Strath Haven stayed within a point, trailing 30-29 at the 6:26 mark of the third quarter on a Gill basket but the shots the Panthers had gotten in the first half were starting to dry up. Crestwood also started to face-guard Maddie Fanning and while Voshell stepped up to score eight points in the frame, the Comets were also starting to grab more rebounds.

A 5-0 spurt turned into a 14-2 run over a three-minute span for Crestwood as five different players contributed a point to give the Comets a 46-33 lead. Voshell explained the hot start her team had in the first quarter somewhat negatively affected them in the third.

“When we came out in the first quarter hot with all of our shots falling, that kind of deterred us from going in and taking layups, which is normally where we find the majority of our success,” Voshell, who ended with 10 points, said. “I think when we came out in the third and our shots weren’t falling and we weren’t used to attacking or trying to penetrate through their defense, that kind of hurt.”

Crestwood took an 11-point lead into the fourth quarter and the Comets seemed like they’d be fine stretching the game out and trying to protect that lead. Strath Haven, which came from nine points down to force overtime and beat Radnor in the prior round, wasn’t going to be a willing participant.

The Panthers were relentless in their pressure, the Fannings hounding whoever had the ball and made it a chore for Crestwood just to cross the timeline. It started to pay off, Gill and Maddie Fanning scoring eight straight points – the last coming on a Fanning three assisted by Voshell – to get within 48-45 with 3:34 to play.

Crestwood point guard Jordan Andrews gave her team some space by threading the needle on a fantastic pass to Jackie Gallagher for a five-point advantage in response.

Fanning found her way to one more score with 1:40 left, cutting it to three again but for as much heart as Strath Haven continued to pour in, the Panthers couldn’t get that last break they needed. Gill, who scored 12 and played excellent in her final game, watched a shot roll halfway down and out early in the comeback effort, a steal was called a tie up that gave the ball back to Crestwood and the Panthers had two looks at a tying three on the same possession come up short but they kept fighting.

“We’ve always been the underdogs in this but we like to be the underdogs,” Fanning said. “People don’t always expect us to play as well as we do.”

“The stalling, we see that and it just makes our blood boil, we just want to get that ball back,” Voshell said. “When you have kids who want to work really hard and attack it the way that we do, that’s how we got back into the Radnor game and got back into this game, it just shows hard work and hustle.”

Fanning and her sister had plenty of success in the fall helping Strath Haven win a state soccer title but the freshman said this season will be equally memorable. She added that there’s no way to measure how much the Panthers will miss Voshell, Gill and Fox next year and the biggest lesson she took from the seniors was how to take a lesson from a teammate and apply it the next time.

“Our record in the beginning was not very good so I’m going to remember how we all came together,” Fanning said. “It doesn’t matter that in the beginning we weren’t the best team, we all came to practice ready to learn and I’m going to remember the hustle and the drive we all had.”

Voshell certainly poured her heart into Strath Haven basketball, the senior remembering taking a look at the group assembled in the gym for the first day of practice and thinking “alright, here we are, this is gonna take a lot of work to get us to the end of the season.”

Then, with coach Brandi Johnson and her staff guiding them and the seniors taking charge, the Panthers started putting things together. It was evident early on to the senior, who will play next year at TCNJ, she had a group around her willing to work and that wanted to get better.

It even had an effect within the school, where girls’ basketball hadn’t been on the same level as some of the Panthers’ more prominent programs, with the team’s first state appearance in 33 years getting recognition.

“It was shocking to walk down the hallways and have five or six teachers go ‘congrats, congrats, congrats, ok states,’ and it’s like ‘Ok, I’ve definitely never heard this before,’’ Voshell said. “It’s exciting and it was nice to see the school come together and show support.

“I think everybody was surprised but when they came and saw the way we play and the hustle, I’m sure they thought ‘you know, it actually does make sense.’”

By Quarter

CRESTWOOD 13 | 13 | 22 | 6 || 54

STRATH HAVEN 14 | 11 | 12 | 10 || 47

Scoring

C: Cameron Vieney 12, Kendall Petrosky 10, Jackie Gallagher 10, Kate Gallagher 8, Charlie Hiller 8, Jordan Andrews 7

SH: Maddie Fanning 21, Maryella Gill 12, Olivia Voshell 10, Kenzie Fanning 2, Annika Slootmaker 2