Teardrops, but not enough shots, fall for District 11 teams

Tough night for District 11 teams to say the least in the state basketball tournament.

Our three 4A girls teams were eliminated, including District 11 champ and LVC runners-up Northampton. Ditto for Tamaqua and Pen Argyl in 2A heartbreakers.

Throw in Marian's loss in Class A boys and we're now down to a precious few remaining in the state tournament.

You've got Notre Dame and Liberty playing in boys games tonight along with the Central Catholic girls. And as usual, there are a couple of Class A girls teams left from the Schuylkill League -- Nativity and Tri-Valley -- and that's about it.

At most area schools it's time to think spring. And with the weather getting sunny and warm, why not?

I was at Norristown for the Liberty girls game, and first of all, thank you to Norristown AD Chuck Knowles for allowing me to work in the athletic office to send my story. You never know what you're going to get on a road trip out of your coverage area, but Chuck treated me well.

Secondly, the return of Daylight Savings Time and the sunny weather created a strange atmosphere at Norristown. The sun was shining through the windows and doors, and the crowd wasn't all that large and this one just didn't feel like a playoff game. It felt more like an indoor summer game.

And maybe that had something to do with Liberty's subpar performance. I felt bad for the Hurricanes girls because you have to give yourself a chance to win these state playoff games and they didn't give themselves a shot at all with 25 turnovers. And a decent amount of those turnovers were unforced.

It's got to be so frustrating to spend all of that time and effort and put yourself in position to win a state playoff game and then simply not play as well as you are capable of playing.

Archbishop Ryan is a nice team, but beatable.

Liberty, in fact, had beaten the Ragdolls earlier this season.

But you just can't turn the ball over 25 times and expect to win.

The Hurricanes had a senior-oriented team, a team that has been through a lot in the last couple of years, including a coaching change.

It was a sad locker room at the end of the night. Understandably so. With girls, the end of a season is always much harder than it is with boys. Boys tend to conceal their emotions a little better.

Frankly, there's bound to be a few more sad ones tonight.

Geigle Complex has been the scene of so many sad postgame interviews for me over the years -- Whitehall in 2005, Allen in 2006 to mention a few. We'll see what happens tonight. Liberty-York figures to be a good boys game. Notre Dame probably is a much longer longshot against Imhotep Charter.

You just hope the turnovers and missed foul shots are kept to a minimum and if you lose, you lose playing good basketball.

Having scored just 31 points, including a mere two in the fourth quarter, the Liberty girls didn't really do that tonight. But this has been a nice era of Hurricanes basketball and the seniors who played their final games tonight can feel good about their careers as a whole.

FROM KEITH GROLLER