Carly Gregas and her senior teammates remember the feeling of walking off the Martz Hall floor disappointed after last year’s Schuylkill League semifinals.
That disappointment provided a great deal of motivation for North Schuylkill to return to the spot where it took place.
The motivation also helped carry the Spartans past their disappointment of last season and back to the final for the first time since 2007.
Gregas posted a game-high 16 points, eight rebounds and four blocks as North Schuylkill opened a big first-half lead then fended off Marian for a 47-42 victory in the second girls’ basketball semifinal Tuesday night.
The Division I champion Spartans (21-2) will face defending league titlist Minersville, a 49-48 winner over Pottsville, at 6 p.m. Friday for the title at Martz Hall.
In last year’s semifinal, the Spartans dropped a 31-28 decision to the Fillies (16-7).
Gregas and the Spartans wanted a different outcome this time around.
“I think it really fired us up because we didn’t want to feel that way again,” Gregas said. “I think we’re all real excited because we finally made it to the Schuylkill League finals.”
The 6-foot senior helped make that happen with a big first half as Marian tried to find ways to stop her in the post.
Gregas scored the Spartans’ first six points as Marian struggled to handle her inside.
“I knew that Tiff (Lapotsky) was going to be guarded,” Gregas said. “I was feeling it out and seeing how they were going to guard me. Everything just kind of happened, I guess.”
Marian coach Paul Brutto acknowledged the difficulty with defending Gregas. In addition to sending just one senior onto the floor, the Fillies had a decided height disadvantage against Gregas, Nina Marone (5-9) and Averi Jordan (5-8).
“We just had a hard time with Gregas inside,” Brutto said. “Her and Lapotsky are a nice duo. Lapotsky can get her feet in the paint, which makes you collapse and causes all kinds of rotation problems. Gregas — we have nobody size-wise to match up with her.”
While Lapotsky was held to 10 points, Gregas and Jordan capitalized on opportunities to score.
“Carly’s a tough senior who is
as athletic as anybody in the league for her size,” North Schuylkill coach John Rizzo said. “She’s a tough match up for people because of her athleticism and her desire to want to work on both ends of the ball. I’m happy for her and I’m happy for those other kids that helped her out there.”
North Schuylkill built a 12-2 lead before Marian closed the gap to 14-7 to end the first quarter. The Spartans then increased their advantage to 21-7 before the Fillies went on an 11-0 run to again close the gap to 23-18 by halftime.
“I’m real happy with our effort,” Brutto said. “We easily could’ve folded there. I think a fair share of people thought it was going to be a blowout at that point, so I give our kids a ton of credit for battling back.
“We went to zone from man and that might have been when we went back to man,” Brutto added. “I think we got some steals and things, and we were a little bit more aggressive in the man-to-man. That kind of sparked us. Then we ran our offense a little bit better there. Our execution got better.”
The Fillies made several defensive switches, going from man to zone and back to man again to keep the Spartans off-balanced and try to contain Gregas inside and Lapotsky on the perimeter.
“We saw a lot of zone this year,” Rizzo said. “I think that helped us in terms of the patience and ball movement that we had out there. I was very happy with what we did against that zone. He has kids that can defend. No matter what kind of defense they’re in, they’re going to be in position to defend.”
North Schuylkill also received a solid defensive effort. The Spartans forced 12 turnovers by the Fillies, with eight coming in the first quarter.
Waverly Snyder drew the assignment of defending 1,000-point scorer Abbey Whildin and held the senior in check for most of the night.
“Wave worked hard. I blasted Wave out there because we expected a lot out of her, and she did very well,” Rizzo said. “She had some tough assignments. At times she was on Whildin, other times she was on (Vanessa) Whitecavage (and) I think she guarded (Brenna) Karnish on a possession. Wave was all over the place, and she made some big plays for us in there. She’s a tough kid.”
With the teams exchanging buckets for much of the third quarter, Marian finally went on a 8-2 run to cut its deficit to a point at 39-38 with 3:39 left in the game.
The Fillies could get no closer.
North Schuylkill used several trips to the line to build its edge back to 44-38 with 1:58 left.
After a run on the foul line by the Fillies made it 44-42 with 36.6 seconds left, Jordan helped seal the win for North Schuylkill by canning 3-of-4 from the foul line in the final 25 seconds.
Jordan finished with 12 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, to go along with seven rebounds.
“I said to Averi before the game, ‘Are you a freshman?,’ ” Rizzo said. “She said, ‘No, not anymore.’ I said, ‘Good answer.’
“She stepped up. She made foul shots at the end. She defended well. She really stepped up for us tonight.”
Now, the Spartans get their chance to return to the top of the Schuylkill League.
“It feels awesome,” Gregas said. “It almost feels like we won a championship, but we still have Friday to play and we’re really going to be pumped for it.”
Game Summary
Schuylkill League semifinals
At Martz Hall
MARIAN (42) — Whildin 3 1-2 8, Whitecavage 3 2-2 9, Correale 0 0-0 0, Shaud 0 0-0 0, Agosti 1 2-2 4, Capparell 1 0-0 3, Karnish 5 2-6 13, Stoyer 0 5-10 5. Totals 13 12-22 42.
NORTH SCHUYLKILL (47) — Marone 0 3-7 3, C. Gregas 7 2-5 16, Stokes 3 0-0 6, Lapotsky 5 0-0 10, Bell 0 0-0 0, Snyder 0 0-0 0, Jordan 3 4-6 12, Shinkus 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 9-18 47.
Marian (16-7) 7 11 12 12 — 42 N. Sch. (21-2) 14 9 11 13 — 47
3-point FGs: Whildin, Whitecavage, Capparell, Karnish, Jordan 2