Villa Maria's Season Ends in Second Round of States

Brooke Angelos had a thought in the back of her mind the whole basketball season.

"I really, really, really thought we were going to the championship game," the Villa Maria Academy senior said, fighting back tears after Wednesday night's game. "It's hard to believe right now that we're not."

Angelos' and the Hurricanes' hopes of a berth in the PIAA AAA state final were dashed on Wednesday night by Allentown Central Catholic, 41-28, in a contest played 50-plus miles from the Villa campus at Council Rock South High in Bucks County.

It was a game that started out fine and ended at the opposite end of the spectrum. To put it into prosective, one only needs to hear the words of Villa head coach Kathy McCartney.

"We were just terrible," the longtime leader of the Hurricanes said, shaking her head. "I don't have an answer for it, but we didn't do our best at a time when we needed to."

For the first five minutes or so, everything went Villa's way. After a 2-2 tie, they used a pressure defense to rattle ACC and when Lisa Mirarchi hit a three-pointer at the 3:52 mark of the first quarter, the Hurricanes found themselves ahead 10-2. A Kerry Kinek basket and a three-pointer from Casey Hollowell with 1:26 cut the Villa lead to 10-7 after eight minutes.

That slight edge wouldn't last, as Villa's problems only accumulated in the second quarter as the Hurricanes (22-7) couldn't buy a basket. The Vikettes tied the game 10-10 on a trey from Jenna Kocsis at 6:26, then Villa went ahead 12-10 thanks to a Kellie O'Rourke bucket at 1:31.

Believe it or not, as Mr. Ripley would say, it was the final time in the 2010-11 basketball season that Villa Maria would have a lead. In the final 11:52 of the first half—from Mirarchi's basket in the first quarter to halftime—the Hurricanes scored just two points. Kocsis' trey at the buzzer before intermission gave ACC the lead, 15-12.

Neither team set the world afire in the second half. The Vikettes pushed ahead 19-12 only to see Villa cut that lead to 19-17 on a three-pointer from Kristen Walheim at 3:09. But any time the Hurricanes tried to get back into the game, ACC (25-4) had a scoring spurt, such as the one at the end of the quarter that gave the District 11 team a 26-18 advantage.

Villa pulled to within 26-23 at 5:01 of the final quarter on an Angelos basket but the Vikettes marched to the foul line time and time again to stay ahead. In fact, Allentown Central Catholic made just one field goal in the fourth quarter but shot 16 foulshots and made 13 of them to win easily, 41-28.

Kinek had 16 points for Allentown CC while the Hurricanes were led by 12 from Angelos.

"The hardest part is saying goodbye to the seniors [Angelos, Maria Ferrari and Lauren Martinelli]," McCartney said. "The team is devastated right now, which in a way is good, because it shows how much they care about Villa basketball. I told them when things settle down, they'll realize we won 22 of 29 games this season and not many teams in Pennsylvania can say that."

Angelos' vision of a state championship won't become reality now, but she said wouldn't trade the past five months for anything in the world.

"No team on the East coast, West coast, anywhere, is as close as this one is," she said. "We're so close, we're like sisters. We had a tremendous season and a great last four years. It's just really upsetting knowing it all has come to an end."