Steady rise to top
Maidens on cusp of district title for past 3 seasons
It has been a steady seven-year climb to the top of District 1 for the North Penn girls basketball team.
In October 2007, Maggie deMarteleire took over a program that missed out on the postseason in two of the three previous years.
Flash forward to last Friday night, Maidens tri-captains Vicky Tumasz, Erin Maher and Bri Cullen were presented with the district’s championship trophy after North Penn bested Spring-Ford 63-41 in the Class AAAA final at Villanova University’s Pavilion.
“For them to take under their wing the three freshmen and a sophomore and just meld us into a team that won the district, it’s truly unbelievable, I’m not going to lie,” said deMarteleire after the game.
With the way North Penn has steadily improved under deMarteleire, it was only a question of when not if the Maidens would become the best in the district.
North Penn has qualified for states in four of the past five seasons — in- cluding the past three in which the Maidens have gone a combined 69-16 (.811) — and won a share (2013) and claimed outright (2014) the Suburban One League Continental Conference crown.
In 2012, NP reached the district final — losing to Spring-Ford — and went 21-7. Last season the Maidens improved to going 24-6 after a trip to the PIAA quarterfinals.
Friday, North Penn can surpass its 2012-2013 win total with a victory over Lebanon in the first round of states
at Colonial Middle School. The Maidens enter the contest with the Cedars — who finished seventh in District 3 — on a season-best 10game win streak.
“It’s going to be tough. Anyone can play their best game at any time,” Tumasz said. “So we know as long as we step onto the court and play our game, we’ll be fine. “
Offense A-OK for North Penn
If Tumasz was going to light up Spring-Ford for 27 points in the district final, the senior did not have any indications of it before the game.
“In warmups, I wasn’t hitting anything,” said Tumasz, who was named to her second-straight AllSOL Continental first team Monday. “Then, in the first half, I think we were attacking really well and they kind of stepped off of us in the second half and we just pulled up right in their faces.
Tumasz scored 20 points in the first and third quarters — putting up 11 of North Penn’s 13 points in the third — and was one of four Maidens in double figures. North Penn’s 63 points were the secondmost the Rams allowed this season, bested only by the 69 Christ the King (N.Y.) scored in its nine-point win over the PAC-10 side Jan. 26.
Spring-Ford, which had won the past two District 1 titles and is the defending PIAA 4A champ, had been giving up just 34.1 points per game heading into last Friday’s final.
“If we run our normal offensive sets, a lot of them start over at the wing and they just trap you right away,” deMarteleire said. “We tried to spread things out a little bit and attack the basket. I thought the kids did a good job. And they hit the open person – it seemed like whenever Vicky or Sam (Carangi) was open, we were able to hit them.”
And Tumasz and Carangi have been hitting plenty of shots beyond the arc. The duo has 28 — Carangi 15, Tumasz 13 — of the Maidens’ 33 3-pointers in the district playoffs. North Penn hit 11 triples in the semifinal win over West Chester Rustin, then connected on seven against Spring-Ford.
Through five postseason games, the Maidens are scoring 9.2 points per game (63.6 to 54.4) more than they were its 22 regular-season games. Tumasz paces NP with a playoff-high 17.8 points per game, while Maher is putting up 13.6 ppg and has scored in double figures in all five district contests.
Carangi is third in playoff scoring with 11.0 ppg. Against Spring-Ford, she knocked down a three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points, while fellow freshman Irisa Ye was second to Tumasz last Friday with 12 points. Ye had four points during a 9-0 second-quarter run that put the Maidens ahead for good.
“In the beginning of the season, we were all kind of a little nervous to see what they were going to do,” said Tumasz of the team’s freshmen. “But they got comfortable with us and we pushed each other at practices — we know what their weakness is, so we worked on that. And we just stepped onto the court and we got it done.”
First district title for deMarteleire
After her teams came up short three times before in district finals, deMarteleire was finally on the winning side in try No. 4 last Friday.
Two seasons ago as the ninth seed, North Penn made the AAAA final but lost to Spring-Ford 46-33.
deMarteleire also coached Lansdale Catholic to back-to-back District 1-AAA championship games in 2001 and 2002. Both losses for LC came in overtime — 56-53 to Pottstown in ’01, then 60-59 against Villa Maria the next season.
Follow assistant sports editor Mike Cabrey on Twitter @mpcabrey.
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