Ryan senior Shayna Rodriguez, who made major strides in her offensive game this season, tallied seven points in her final game. MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
Aubree Brown and the members of the Archbishop Wood girls basketball team have been offering lots of ‘no comments,’ these days; but ask Brown about playing against Archbishop Ryan and her good friend Shannon Glenn and her face lights up, happy to shed some insight into the duo’s friendly rivalry.
“Me and Shannon, we’re best friends … she was actually over my house on Tuesday,” Brown said following Wood’s 39–34 victory over Ryan in Thursday night’s Catholic League semifinals at Philadelphia University. “We’ve been good friends for awhile, but when it comes to basketball, we go at it. I know a lot of their players, but Shannon and I are really close.”
Brown is a Parkwood resident but stars on the hardwood for the Lady Vikings, who have dealt with their fair share of hardships the past two weeks. Head coach John Gallagher resigned early last week amidst allegations that he sent anonymous emails to college coaches in hopes of ruining the college eligibility of rival players from Neumann-Goretti, the nation’s top-ranked team, according to a USA Today poll. He was replaced by assistant Mike McDonald on an interim basis as the highly-successful program prepared for another postseason run.
When Brown was asked about the situation by a reporter after the game, she laughed nervously, unsure if she was even allowed to say anything on the matter. Scandal can be a major distraction, especially to teenage girls, but the Wood players found their safe haven away from the outside noise on the court. On Thursday night, that was all that mattered.
“It’s really great to get back to the Palestra,” Brown said, referring to the venue of Monday night’s championship tilt against Neumann-Goretti, a rematch from a year ago that the Saints won by nine. “Our team is playing really well together, and we hope the best is yet to come.”
Wood’s best effort certainly didn’t come on Thursday night, in large part due to a tenacious Ryan defense that was keyed in on stopping the Lady Vikings’ top two players — Brown, who is bound for Drexel University on a basketball scholarship in the fall, and junior Bailey Greenberg. Brown and Greenberg each managed just six points apiece (the latter also grabbed 13 rebounds), but a balanced attack by Wood — in which eight players scored, led by sophomore Cassie Sebold’s 10 — ultimately doomed the Ragdolls, who had their own troubles stringing together any kind of offensive consistency.
In fact, Ryan never led in this game. Wood held a 13–7 advantage after the first quarter, and after increasing it to 12 in the second frame, the Ragdolls never got closer than five points the rest of the game. Ryan kept on coming, but anytime head coach Mike McCusker’s group seemed poised for a run, Wood issued a counterpunch, showing why they’ve had so much success in the Catholic League over the years.
“We really focused on Brown and Greenberg and had two of our better defenders on them throughout,” McCusker said. “We concentrated on them and wanted the other girls to beat us, and to their credit, they hit some big shots down the stretch.”
Wood led 19–12 at halftime, and the Ragdolls stayed within striking distance until the final buzzer. But anytime Ryan hit, Wood hit back; when Ryan junior Ashley Smink (team-high 12 points) hit a three-pointer to cut it to 24–19, Wood freshman Katie May drilled one of her own on the very next possession. The Ragdolls shaved four points off an 11-point fourth quarter deficit, only to have Sebold connect from long-range the next time down the floor. Ryan scratched and clawed from start to finish, but in the end, as good as the team played defensively on the bigger, stronger Lady Vikings, the offensive rhythm the Ragdolls found in their quarterfinals upset at Bonner-Prendie was simply missing.
“I thought we played a little too fast for ourselves, just not using our offense for what it’s designed for, which is to get open shots,” McCusker said. “We didn’t use our offense as well as we could have, but they did a great job defensively too. They recognized who our shooters were, and they stayed out on them. They tried to make us beat them by getting inside.”
In addition to Smink’s 12, senior Danielle Skedzielewski (who was fantastic defensively) added eight, while junior Glenn and senior Shayna Rodriguez chipped in with seven each. Though tears blanketed the faces of the Ryan players afterward, McDonald and Brown said the Ragdolls had nothing to hang their heads about. In fact, it was probably the hardest Wood had to work in any of the team’s 21 victories this season.
“They have a lot of heart, and we knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy game,” Brown said. “They’re really tough and knocked us around a little, and some of our girls aren’t used to that. They really pressured me and Bailey to make sure we didn’t get the ball, but the other girls on our team really stepped up. Ryan really gave it their all, and we just tried to be strong and give a little of that back to them.”
“Ryan did a great job defensively on our best two players,” added McDonald, a Cardinal Dougherty grad and former Ryan assistant. “Skedzielewski in particular was tough, and they’re always very physical with us. We’re well aware of how good an opponent they are. It wasn’t a good offensive night for us, but at this point in the season, you take the win when you can get the win.”
For Ryan, it was a close-but-no-cigar kind of ending. The team entered the postseason as the №6 seed, knocked off the №3 seed on the road and essentially played wire-to-wire basketball for 32 minutes with Wood, the league’s second-best team. The program continued to make strides this season, and even though the Ragdolls will graduate seven seniors, Smink, Glenn and Sara Ostaszewski are just a few of the players with experience who will return in McCusker’s third season.
“We feel like we’re at the next step,” McCusker said. “We feel like we could have taken it this year, but we pride ourselves on getting to that championship game. We’ll keep working on it. We’re hoping we’re playing in the same game next year and again trying to take that next step. We’ll take a look at some of the younger players in our program and get them ready. We’re losing seven seniors, so our young kids will help dictate that if they’re willing to get better and put in the time.”
Ryan, which hasn’t won a girls basketball league title since 1975, will keep knocking on the door in hopes that someone will answer. As long as they do, the Ragdolls will keep doing their best to barge on through.
“I just let them all know that there aren’t many teams with seven seniors who work as hard as they did all year,” McCusker said. “We feel that them sticking with it will make them successful people later in life. We had our ups and downs all year, but I really do think we were playing our best ball at the end. It might not have shown on the offensive end tonight, but we were at our best. It was just a great bunch of kids with great personalities.” ••
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Ryan senior Danielle Skedzielewski (right) scored eight points in her final game. It was Skedzielewski’s tie-breaking shot with two seconds left in the quarters that sent the Ragdolls to the semifinals. MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
Ryan junior Shannon Glenn, a close friend of Aubree Brown, had seven points for the Ragdolls. MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
Ryan junior Ashley Smink led all scorers with 12 points. MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
Brown, who is bound for Drexel University on a basketball scholarship, managed just six points in large part due to ferocious Ryan defense. BILL ACHUFF / FOR THE TIMES
Archbishop Wood senior Aubree Brown, a Parkwood resident, gets ready to fight for a rebound with Ryan senior Danielle Skedzielewski in Wood’s 39–34 Catholic League semifinal victory. MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
