City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Conestoga’s entire season has been one big rally. 

So it was only fitting that winning the Central League’s regular-season championship required the Pioneer girls to do it once more. 

Trailing Haverford High multiple times in the second half, including by a point in the final minute, it was senior guard Ryann Jennings who delivered in the clutch. Jennings’ 3-pointer from the left wing with 15 seconds remaining, off a feed from classmate Maggie Neary, hit nothing but net to lift Conestoga to a 41-39 win on Tuesday night. 

It’s the second time in three years that Conestoga (15-7 overall, 14-2 Central League) has finished with at least a share of the Central League regular-season title, after they and Haverford both finished 14-2 in the league two years back. It’s an outright regular-season title this time around, the Pioneers finishing a game ahead of Garnet Valley and two up on Haverford (15-6, 12-4), which would have forced a three-way tie with a win. 

Jennings, the reigning Central League MVP, a four-year starter and Lehigh commit, finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds as she continues to build on her program-record scoring total, now at 1,732 points.

Ryann Jennings’ 15-point, 15-rebound double-double helped Conestoga to the top seed in the Central League playoffs. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

It wasn’t her most efficient scoring night from the field, but she kept plugging away and came up with big shots when it counted. Her game-winning triple was undoubtedly the biggest, a splashdown triple off a swing pass from Neary, the 5-foot-11 sharpshooter letting fly with confidence and hitting nothing but net with 14 seconds on the clock. 

“As the years go on you get more comfortable in those situations,” she said. “I definitely was very calm and I knew that if I was put in that opportunity that I had to be ready and step up for the team, because I feel like we all play so well together, but this was really on me to step up.”

The win was the 11th in a row for Conestoga, which was 4-7 after losing at Radnor on Jan. 3 and hasn’t lost since. That’s no coincidence: it was on Jan. 6 against Penncrest that the Pioneers got Neary back from a five-game absence due to a sprained ankle, and welcomed junior wing Natalie Garzio back for the first time this season after she tore her right ACL last April. 

Plugging those two back into the starting lineup made a world of difference.

“The last three weeks we’ve been 100% healthy, which has been huge,” Conestoga head coach Ken Doyle said. “We were playing with five varsity players and a bench of JV girls. A lot of experience for the young girls, which is starting to pay off now, but it’s been big having some of the older girls back.”

Natalie Garzio returned in early January, just in time to help the Pioneers go on an 11-game winning streak to close out the regular season. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

A 5-10 guard, Garzio didn’t find her way into the scoring column in Tuesday’s win, contributing four rebounds along with an assist, steal and block. A defensive specialist, her presence on the floor certainly helps the Pioneers stay more connected and composed on that end, and she helps them limit their mistakes offensively; they only committed 11 turnovers against the Fords. 

Her ACL injury was actually her second, after tearing her left ACL near the end of her freshman season. 

“It just feels great, especially coming back from injury and missing half the season,” she said. “Getting us all back together and finally winning, it feels so good.”

Jennings’ 15 points tied with senior guard Libby Brown to pace Conestoga in a night where open looks were hard to come by at both ends; Neary added seven points for the Pioneers. 

Brown, a 5-4 point guard and Ursinus commit, was 6-of-9 from the floor, including 3-of-6 from the 3-point arc; she also added three steals and two rebounds, forcing a few tie-ups as well. 

“She’s been incredible all year playing defense on the top guards on the other team all the time and she really came through tonight offensively," Doyle said. "Really came through clutch tonight because we were just struggling to score."

Only three Haverford players got into the scoring column: sophomore guard Grace Maloney was outstanding with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting; senior forward Maura Gilroy toughed her way to 12 points, and sophomore Taylor Gleason added six.

It was a night of wild swings: Conestoga went up 15-6 in the first quarter, with Brown scoring seven points and Jennings dishing out three assists. Haverford locked down on defense for the next 12 minutes, pulling within 18-15 at half and going 24-20 early in the third, an extended 18-5 run that featured plenty of Maloney’s offensive abilities and a 3-point play from Gilroy as well. 

Conestoga found its footing midway through the third, responding to the Fords’ big push with an 18-3 run to go up 38-27 with 4:40 remaining on a mid-range jumper by Maddie Michalek. Neary and Brown both hit 3-pointers early in the fourth, followed by a couple Jennings buckets in the lane to get a lot of damage done in a short period of time. 

Haverford, and Maloney, weren’t done. The Fords used an extended possession that included an and-one and offensive rebound to get five points back, a Maloney 3-pointer making it 38-32 with 3:20 left. A Maloney triple pulled them within 38-37 with 1:20 left, then two more forced turnovers allowed Maloney to go baseline and put Haverford up 39-38 with 30 seconds to play. 

Jennings, fittingly, provided the final firework.

“She’s just a great player and lives in the moment,” Doyle said. “No moment’s too big for her and I knew coming there, I just had to get her open, get her something she could take, whatever she wanted to take, and hope it went down and lucky for us it went down.”

Both teams will continue in the Central League playoffs. Haverford, the No. 3 seed, will host Marple Newtown in a first-round game on Thursday. Conestoga will play the lowest remaining seed in the semifinals on Friday; the championship will be on Monday at a location TBA. 

By Quarter
Fords:  6   |   9   |  12  |  12  ||  39
Stoga: 15  |   3   |   8   |  15  ||  41

Shooting
Fords: 15-40 FG (3-8 3PT), 6-13 FT
Stoga: 16-42 FG (5-17 3PT), 4-4 FT

Scoring
Fords: Grace Maloney 21, Maura Gilroy 12, Taylor Gleason 6

Stoga: Ryann Jennings 15, Libby Brown 15, Maggie Neary 7, Maddie Michalek 2, Maren Gallagher 2