St. Basil’s too much for Dock in finals
Slow start haunts Pioneers in 28-point loss
VILLANOVA — The Christopher Dock’s girls basketball team was in trouble from the opening tap against St. Basil Academy.
The Pioneers couldn’t buy a shot and the Panthers couldn’t miss. All that added up to a 51-23 victory for St. Basil in the District 1-AA final.
With the win, the Panthers move into the PIAA playoffs. Dock, how- ever, has concluded its season.
“Some days our shots just don’t fall,” Pioneer junior Olivia Seavy said. “You just have to roll with it.”
But maybe it wasn’t just the fact that the Pioneers couldn’t hit any shots. Maybe it was the competition they faced.
Coming into the championship game, Dock realized what it was up against. St. Basil was the defending district champ and was returning all of its players from last year.
“Basil is a machine,” Dock coach Tim Ehst said, “because they are a senior-laden team and the competition they play night in and night out puts them in a position where they have to get better and better every game.”
St. Basil convinced Seavy that what she had heard about them was true.
“They are very good three-point shooters,” she said. “That was the biggest challenge for us the whole game.
“Switching to man (man-to-man defense) helped us a bit. They are a really talented team and there is only so much you can do to stop them.”
Freshman forward Jill Bolton also knew what they Pioneers were facing.
“We knew it was going to be hard coming into this,” she said. “We knew it was going to affect our game and that we had to step up.
“Our shots weren’t falling and their defense was good. That’s just how it goes. Our three-point shooting wasn’t on today.”
However, St. Basil’s was. The Panthers made 10 three-pointers including six in the second quarter and nine straight from the 3:42 mark of the first period to the 2:31 points of the second quarter.
And the Panthers defense was just as strong as its shooting. It just about blanked Dock for the first three quarters.
St. Basil limited the Pioneers to four points in the first quarter, three in the second and four in the third. At the same time, the Panthers were putting 15, 22 and nine points on the board, giving them a 46-11 lead after the first three periods.
Dock rebounded a bit in the final quarter. In fact, the Pioneers outscored St. Basil 12-5 in the final stanza.
“We came out and did the best we could,” Ehst said. “That’s what I told the kids to do.
“It would have been nice if we could have performed with a bit more poise, handled the defensive pressure a bit more but that’s the way it was.”
Unfortunately, the best the Pioneers will be able to say is that they reached the district final and, in doing so, received medals commemorating their accomplishment.
“We’re all really happy that we could get here,” Seavy said. “We knew coming in that Saint Basil was going to be a challenge and it definitely was.
“At the beginning of the season, we set a goal to get here. We’re glad that we could accomplish the goal of getting here and we made it a goal in the second half (of the game) to play as a team and play our game despite the score and we did that, so we’re happy for that.”
Those sentiments ring true for Bolton also.
“It was an awesome experience for me as a freshman,” she said. “For our seniors, they wanted it but it didn’t happen today.”
Considering the Pioneers have only two seniors, the experience in the final will help next year’s team. And something else could bring some assistance.
“We’re changing classification so we’ll be in single A next year,” Ehst explained. “It’ll be a full lineup there in terms of battling for the No. 1 spot. We’re going to reset our sights for playing in that classification.”
If the Pioneers were in Class A this year, their season would not be over. They would be advancing to the PIAA playoffs.
Class AA sends only one team from District One to the states. Class A sends two teams to the PIAA playoffs.
St. Basil 51, Dock 23
Christopher Dock 4 3 4 12 — 23 Saint Basil 15 22 9 5 — 51
Christopher Dock: Nicole Clements 0 0-0 0; Olivia Seavy 1 2-2 4; Lauren Anderson 0 1-2 1; Olyvia Longacre 2 0-0 4; Kereece Seuren 0 0-0 0; Mattasyn Shisler 0 0-0 0; Lanae Hunsberger 1 0-0 2; Tabitha Miller 2 0-0 4; Sabrina Demetrius 1 2-2 4; Emma Lewis 0 0-0 0; Megan Swintosky 0 2-2 2. Totals 6 11-12 23
Saint Basil: Molly Greenberg 5 0-0 12; Kelly Mancini 1 0-0 2; Kalee Fuegel 2 0-0 6; Sarah Wilson 1 0-0 3; Karen Lapkiewicz 5 0-0 12; Kate Skalski 2 0-0 5; Natalie Kucowski 2 0-0 5; Ally Sloan 1 2-4 5; Caroline Buckley 0 1-2 1. Totals 19 3-6 51.