City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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WHITEMARSH >> Grace Miley was going to shoot, right up until she didn’t.

Instead, the Perkiomen Valley senior saw Quinn Boettinger and in a show of what’s made this Vikings team so good, Miley gave up the ball at the biggest juncture of Friday’s PIAA Class 6A semifinals. Boettinger drew a foul in a tie game, stepped to the line and knocked down two free throws for a PV lead it wouldn’t give back.

It took every measure they had in them, but the Vikings were finally able to put away Archbishop Carroll 52-45 at Plymouth Whitemarsh, securing their first trip to Hershey and a PIAA title game after an exceptional high school basketball game Friday night.

“We all just know, some of our shots may be good, but there are always better shots,” Miley said. “In a game like this, when it’s so close, taking the best shot is the most important thing. You might have a good shot, but you also have to know if someone else has a better shot because that’s the one more likely to get what you want.”

Two years ago, and two rounds earlier, Carroll had stunned Perk Valley in the same gym on their way to a state title. There was a shared belief between the Vikings, their top six players all seniors in their final run together, that they’d have to get through a Philadelphia Catholic League team at some point to get the state title that’s been the end goal of their focus this year.

Boettinger, who scored 22 points as the game’s top scorer, said she didn’t view Friday as a revenge game. After all, these weren’t the same two teams that played in that overtime duel two years ago even if a handful of the names were the same.

All the senior center was thinking about after Miley found her and she got fouled was sinking those two free throws with 1:38 left on the clock and the score tied 45-45.

“It was a foul shot, you can’t think too much of it but at the end of the day, it’s make-or-miss,” Boettinger said. “I knew I couldn’t miss.”

Friday’s game lived up to every bit of the billing. The final seven-point margin was the largest lead by either team all game, PV’s 5-0 start and a six-point third quarter edge the game's other "large" leads and most of the contest was played on a razor’s edge within a possession or two one way or the other.

Free throws, at least until the Patriots were forced to foul late, were hard-earned and befitting of a state semifinal, it felt like a game the players were going to be the ones to solve. Each of the last two years, that had been a bit of a self-admitted hurdle for the Vikings and in order to get where they wanted to go, they were going to have to get over it.

“We’ve grown, we’ve matured, and we’ve been in this situation before,” PV senior Grace Galbavy said. “Carroll and (Cardinal) O’Hara brought different things sophomore year and junior year that we needed to learn. We needed to change a couple things, I needed to change a couple things and I didn’t, so if we did lose this game, it was going to be on me but everybody else played great and they got me through this game.”

Miley serves as an embodiment of the team’s growth into finally breaking through. As a sophomore, the forward was sidelined by an ACL injury and didn’t play at all while last year, she was just starting to regain some of her form as a player when the Vikings’ season came to a crashing halt.

It’s not like this year has been without challenges. In late January, the senior tweaked the same right knee she’d injured as a sophomore, then did it again with a little more severity in the PAC championship game a few weeks after.

“That one was the real killer where it hasn’t been better since,” Miley said. “It definitely hurts but it’s part of the adrenaline that I’m able to put it aside and not think about it. When I come out of the game, it hurts, but it’s nothing ice can’t fix.”

She’s essentially just gutted it out and played the six weeks, her right knee now intricately taped up before every game. Her teammates follow her lead, the senior never one to shy away from hurling herself after every loose ball or the intensity of playing as someone who knows her career has a finite limit on it.

It’s not gone unnoticed.

“I have so much respect for her,” PV senior Lena Stein said. “She’s been going through so much with her knee, her knee isn’t 100 percent right now, she’s had so many setbacks but the fact she’s still diving for every ball on such big possessions, it shows all of us we’ve got to bring that same energy too.”

For every winning team this time of year taking the joy out of the guarantee of one more game, there’s one left to try and summarize things in the wake of a season-ending result. Carroll expected to have a good season and the Patriots did, they played at the Palestra for a second straight year in the PCL title game and they were in the state final four for the second time in three years.

Still, those things aren’t much of a consolation in the moment to the players who had to grasp the reality that their high school careers are done. Some of Carroll’s seniors, Brooke Olender, Bridget Archbold and Maddie McFillin, have committed to play next year but they won’t do so again as teammates.

It’s the same for Djami Diallo and Olivia Nardi – the guard came out scorching with three made three-pointers in the first quarter that proved Carroll planned on being in the game all night – who rounded out the Patriots’ senior group.

"I think the most important thing about this group is how they showed up every day, got better,” Patriots coach Renie Shields said. “A lot of them didn't play a lot of minutes, down the stretch it's really hard, but what they do is compete every day and make us better. Their legacy is they put us to a point where we knew how to work hard, every day."

McFillin’s a testament to willpower herself. The senior tore the ACL in her left knee at an AAU tournament in May and returned in the state quarterfinals to light a spark that helped propel Carroll a round longer than it had gone a season ago.

Friday, she was the first sub off the bench and while still nowhere near 100 percent, she didn’t come off the floor after halftime. With Perk Valley’s swarming, switching defense geared up to try and keep Alexis and Kayla Eberz in check, it was Maddie and her younger sister Abbie McFillin making some of the Patriots’ biggest plays in the third and fourth quarters.

It was Maddie – knee brace and all – surging down the lane and taking contact for the traditional three-point play with 2:05 left in the game, her free throw tying the score 45-45.

“I think all our kids compete. There's no fear,” Shields said. “Maddie comes back after nine months and Maddie has a really good game. There's a little hesitancy because she hasn't played, gotta get in the flow. With that being said, that (PV) team's good, they've been together for four years. They know."

Bella Bacani started the game off by burying a three-pointer and the Vikings had great success going inside to Boettinger in the first quarter but thanks to Nardi’s trio of threes, it was only a 15-13 PV lead after eight minutes. That’s about the way it stayed the rest of the game, Kayla Eberz giving Carroll an 18-17 lead on an and-one and a 22-21 lead later in the second quarter.

The freshman led Carroll with 12 points, 10 of them coming in the first half and the last three on foul shots that cut the lead to 26-25 going to break after she drew Galbavy’s third personal foul at the quarter horn.

"I thought we played really well. They're good, I mean, they're very good, no one's going to deny that, and I thought we rose to the level and played and competed against them today,” Shields said. “Our team did exactly what we asked them to do, and we got down to the last four minutes and we couldn't connect. Give credit to their defense, which was really good."

The Perkiomen Valley girls' basketball team advanced to its first-ever PIAA title game after defeating Archbishop Carroll 52-45 in the Class 6A semifinals. (CoBL Photo/Josh Verlin)

PV’s defense was good, especially after halftime. While Galbavy was pretty hard on herself for her offensive performance, the senior did net eight points including a critical basket late that put PV ahead 45-42, she felt like her defensive efforts helped make up for it.

She and Stein did a lot of the work defending Kayla and Alexis Eberz, but it was an effort that required all five Vikings on the floor. Both Stein and Galbavy admitted they made mistakes in the first half, Galbavy pointing out she bit on pump fakes too easily while Stein didn’t communicate some switches that led to Carroll baskets, so they were eager to focus up in the second half.

“In big games like this, a lot of teams forget to talk, so we made sure we emphasized that,” Stein said. “You just gotta be dialed in, I always say defense is about effort, so if every girl with Vikings on their shirt gives 100 percent effort on defense, then we’ll be ok.”

Miley won’t be playing at the next level, so she’s taking every opportunity to enjoy the time she has left. That included the three from the corner she banked in two minutes into the third quarter, giving PV a 31-27 and the senior throwing up a shrug as she ran back down the floor.

“As soon as I shot that, I thought ‘wow, that’s awful,’ and it banked so I said ‘you know what, I’m not going to sulk about it, it went in, the bank is always open and I’ll take it,’” Miley said. “You just move on and smile through it.”

There weren’t a lot of smiles amongst the PV supporters when Alexis Eberz nailed a long three off a Maddie McFillin assist to put Carroll ahead 38-36 with 1:14 in the quarter. The Patriots had answered a 10-3 Vikings run with eight straight points, the first five coming from Abbie McFillin just as it seemed like PV was starting to gain some headway.

Off an inbound with less than 20 seconds on the clock, Miley found Stein at the top of the arc, the senior knowing exactly where and to who she was going with the ball.

“I know Bella, I know she’s going to be there, I knew it before I passed it and I knew it was going in too,” Stein said. “I probably could make that pass with my eyes closed.”

Bacani was ready and equally as confident, the senior guard draining the corner three with 10.4 seconds left and after the Vikings survived a look by Kayla Eberz at the buzzer, they took a narrow 39-38 lead to the final eight minutes.

“I know my teammates trust me to take that shot and before I even got I knew ‘I’m going to shoot this, I feel confident,’” Bacani said. “When I got it, right when it left my hand, I knew it was going in.”

There wouldn’t have been many in orange and black in PW’s packed to the rafters Gym West that would have blamed Miley, the heart of this stellar Perkiomen Valley team, if she had taken the biggest shot of her life in the biggest game of her career. The senior thought it was there, she was eyeing up a floater as she started toward the basket until she saw Boettinger, hand up and defender on her back and changed her mind.

Boettinger wasn’t one bit surprised by Miley’s decision to give up her shot.

“That’s just basketball, you can see that’s just the years we’ve had together,” Boettinger said. “We just knew, I’d be cutting, our team would be moving and that’s how we’d beat them. Her finding me, that’s just the chemistry our team has built up over the years.”

After the senior sank both her free throws, Alexis Eberz tried to give Carroll the lead, only to come up a bit long on a three that Bacani rebounded. Counting Boettinger’s foul shots, PV went 7-of-8 from the line in the final 1:38 while Carroll went 0-of-5 from the floor in the same stretch, that last little bit of spark the Patriots needed never quite catching and turning into a flame.

Carroll has plenty to look forward too next year with Alexis Eberz going into her senior year, Kayla Eberz with a year of experience and her twin sister Kelsey coming back from injury, plus Abbie McFillin and Cate Schumacher returning at the top of the rotation. It doesn’t mean this season wasn’t worthwhile in its own right and the Patriots went down shooting until the very last buzzer.

"I told them I was so proud of them. We don't have the length that they do -- not only are they tall, but their length, they're hard to get around. And they're very good,” Shields said. “Grace hits that shot with Lex in her face, (Miley) hits the bank shot. The ball just fell for them and it didn't for us coming down the stretch.

"That was a great game. If you're a fan, you love it."

PV will play in its first state championship game next Friday night against WPIAL champion Upper St. Clair, a 53-49 winner over Garnet Valley in the other semifinal. The teams met this season, Perk Valley travelling out to the Pittsburgh area and beating the western power on the other side of the state, but Boettinger cautioned that doesn’t mean a whole lot when both teams are going after a championship.

Clutching a Hershey’s bar on Friday, Miley said there are tests and maybe another surgery to come for her, but her efforts helped ensure that all will have to wait another week. 

“I decided I’m not going to the doctor yet, I’m going to do what I can to finish this season,” Miley said. “Honestly, it’s been the greatest experience ever. It hits me every single time that buzzer goes off that ‘Wow, that’s one less game that I have.’

“I have one more game this year and I have one more game with these people. They have college, but this is our last game together – we’re not all going on to play on the same team– and it’s been a journey with them. We started in third grade, some of them in kindergarten, we’re going to finish this together and take every moment in together.”

By Quarter
PV: 15 | 11 | 13 | 13 || 52
AC: 13 | 12 | 13 | 7 || 45

Scoring
PV: Quinn Boettinger 22, Bella Bacani 12, Grace Miley 8, Grace Galbavy 8, Lena Stein 2

AC: Kayla Eberz 12, Olivia Nardi 9, Abbie McFillin 9, Alexis Eberz 7, Maddie McFillin 6, Brooke Olender 2