Pennsbury holds off Abington rally

It all hinged on Sofia Vitucci.

Pennsbury knew Abington would face-guard its standout senior captain, Ava Sciolla while also throwing a wave of pressure at whoever had to bring the ball up the floor. If Sciolla wasn’t going to be allowed to shoot, someone else would have to if the No. 4 Falcons wanted to get past the No. 5 Ghosts and into the District 1-6A girls’ semifinals next week.

It all hinged on Sofia Vitucci and the Falcons’ sophomore was more than up to it, scoring 20 points and navigating Abington’s press as Pennsbury outlasted a fourth quarter barrage for a 5048 win Saturday afternoon.

“Everyone steps up in some way,” Vitucci said. “It means I’m going to handle the ball a lot. We knew it was coming, we worked on it Thursday and Friday, so we came into it prepared, knew our roles and knew what we had to do.”

Abington’s offense came predominantly from the three, with the Ghosts canning 11 triples in the game and just one of their first seven field goals coming from inside the arc. It was enough in the first half, with freshman Dani Brusha hitting two and assisting two more while playing her typical hounding defense.

Against most teams, having Brusha pressure the ball up the length of the floor with teammates flying in from every direction would start to compile turnovers. Pennsbury wasn’t flawless in the area, but Vitucci was more than able to get past that first line of defense and either went in for a score, found the teammate left open by the attempted double-team or got the offense into a halfcourt set.

“Abington is really good and they come at you with pressure, but we’re pretty good at handling pressure,” Falcons coach Frank Sciolla said. “That’s something we’re ok with. We’re used to teams face-guarding or doubling Ava at times, it’s a little different for us with the size of our team because we are playing smaller people so it’s not like we can go inside.”

Brusha assisted two threes then hit one of her own as part of a 14-2 Abington run that spanned the end of the first and start of the second to put the Ghosts up 2013 on Cire Worley’s trey with 3:20 left in the half. An Ava Sciolla-assisted hoop by Vitucci cut the lead to 24-16 at the break and the Falcons’ sophomore PG picked right back up in the second half.

Vitucci had two baskets in an 8-0 Pennsbury run to open the third quarter that tied the game, with the teams trading scores the rest of the quarter until Abington