Parkland, Nazareth set up 4th meeting

FROM THE MORNING CALL

With a full week of practice between games, Nazareth received some needed time to move past its Lehigh Valley Conference title-game loss to Central Catholic.

An explosive spurt Friday helped the Blue Eagles stay in the hunt for another championship.

After going back and forth with No. 7 seed Allen for the first 121/2 minutes, Nazareth ripped off the final 15 points of the first half in a 3-minute, 35-second span. The No. 2 Blue Eagles added the first four points of the third quarter and breezed to a 51-31 win in a District 11 Class 4A girls basketball quarterfinal.

No. 3 Parkland started the quarterfinal doubleheader at Dieruff High School by using a 17-2 second-half run to pull away for a 41-24 victory over No. 6 Pocono Mountain West. Parkland (19-5 overall) and Nazareth (20-4) will meet for the fourth time this season in Tuesday's district semifinals (7:30 p.m. at Dieruff). The Blue Eagles are 3-0 against the Trojans this year, with their most recent win coming in last week's LVC semifinals.

Nazareth showed no sign of a hangover from its 26-25 loss to Central Catholic last week, clamping down on Allen's perimeter shooters and dominating in the paint. The Chicks could not contain Blue Eagles star and LVC MVP Erika Livermore, who scored 19 of her game-high 25 points in the first half. She also grabbed 13 rebounds, blocked five shots and came up with three steals.

Livermore scored eight of her points during the game-deciding second-quarter run and also handed out two of her four assists. Morgan Calabrese (nine points, three assists), Caitlyn Gary and Ariane Hilborn also scored during the spurt as Nazareth received contributions from up and down its lineup.

"Early in the year we did that in quite a few games," Nazareth coach Rick Bickert said. "Coming down the stretch, we just didn't do that. It seems like our defense sparks our offense. We're much better running up and down the floor. When we run under control, we're pretty good at it, actually.

"We've been passing the ball really well as a team, too, I thought."

Nazareth finished with 16 assists on its 22 field goals Friday. No one passed the ball better than Gary.

On a night when her shot wasn't falling, she did a superb job of finding seams in Allen's defense. She dished out nine assists, including five in the first quarter as she repeatedly found Livermore.

"She's an underrated guard," Allen coach Tom Gallagher said. "She does little things that a lot of people don't even realize. And she's a tough kid too. She'll give up the ball, and she sees the court."

Allen needed to score from the perimeter to hang with Nazareth. On this night the Chicks could not. They finished 1-for-20 from 3-point range and shot just 20 percent from the field overall.

Syrena Hess led Allen with 13 points and four steals. Kassandra Church added six points and a team-best 12 boards.

"They made it to districts, so that says something about their team and their coach," Livermore said. "But we knew we were the better team coming out. We just had to play like it. The beginning was a little shaky, but once we got our confidence up and started running through things more, we got the points on the board. It was enough to keep them off us."

While Parkland also wound up with a lopsided win, it needed longer to put away Pocono Mountain West than Nazareth did to finish off Allen. Pocono Mountain West (15-11) scored six straight points midway through the third quarter to get within 22-17 before the Trojans busted out.

Alissa Persichetti scored nine of her game-high 18 points during the 17-2 run, which ended with Parkland holding a 39-19 lead. She also had six steals as the Trojans stifled the Panthers. Pocono Mountain West finished with as many turnovers (21) as field-goal attempts.

"We just took our time and looked for fast breaks. We didn't really force any shots," Persichetti said of what allowed Parkland to separate from the Panthers. "I really think our defense is what won it for us. We really shut down their shooters."

As usual, Parkland spread its production around. Kelly Robertson provided six points, five rebounds and two assists off the bench. Starters Monica Hagenauer (three points, six boards), Jess Fritsche (five points) and Olivia Hassler (five points, four steals) also chipped in to give the Trojans another crack at Nazareth.

Ramona Benitez led Pocono Mountain West with nine points. Katie Schickling added five points and five boards, but the Panthers' struggles from 3-point range crushed them. They went just 2-for-10 from the arc.

"Our press ended up doing a great job of slowing them down," Parkland coach Wes Spence said. "That was going to be our focus whether we pressured them or just got back defensively in the half court, to really make them play half-court basketball."

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