Gallant in defeat
Shorthanded Geibel loses nail-biter to Serra in WPIAL final
PITTSBURGH â The WPIAL Class A girls basketball championship came down to one last duel between Geibel Catholic star Emma Larkin and Serra Catholicâs defense.
The Lady Eagles held a precarious 47-46 lead as Larkin dribbled with the clock ticking down under 10 seconds. Serraâs Arianna Ward joined Bella Dumbroski in covering Larkin but she beat the double team dribbling left. The Lady Eaglesâ Abby Genes tried to cut off the baseline but Larkin darted around her also where Serraâs Aryanna Kinard was the last line of defense with her hands up.
Larkin dipped underneath the basket and scooped up a shot. Seemingly everyone inside Petersen Events Center held their breath as the ball bounced on the rim twice with the outcome of the game in the balance.
The ball fell outside the rim with Kinard snatching up the rebound.
The Lady Eagles had their first district title in 21 years.
The Lady Gators fell tantalizingly short but had nothing to be ashamed of, having turned in a performance for the ages when it comes to guts and resolve in the Friday afternoon clash.
Geibel (23-2) was missing one of the WPIALâs best centers in sophomore Mallory Clemmer, out with a broken wrist suffered in her teamâs postgame celebration after its semifinal win over top-seeded Aquinas Academy.
That forced Lady Gators coach Sara Larkin to drastically alter her teamâs offensive and defensive strategies and reduced her already thin bench to one player.
All five Geibel starters â Larkin, junior Janiah Darnell and freshmen Alexa Morgan, Emaleigh Horn and Paige Dolan, stepping into Clemmerâs huge shoes â played the entire game.
Somehow they still almost pulled off a monumental upset against the team they shared the Section 2 title with. They had split their two regular-season meetings with Geibel winning at Serra, 64-55, and the Lady Eagles pulling out a 51-50 victory on the Lady Gatorsâ floor.
Geibel coach Sara Larkin, who is Emmaâs mother, was emotional after the game while stating she was âunbelievablyâ proud of her teamâs effort.
âThree freshmen on the floor. For some reason the public thinks we have 14 (players). You can clearly see we have seven on the roster. Weâre used to getting a lot of minutes from these kids. This is a huge floor, so obviously they were tired today.
âBut boy did they give it everything they had for 32 minutes.â
Both teams will begin PIAA play with home games on Saturday.
The game was close throughout with the biggest lead by either team being six points.
Emma Larkin, a 5-foot-5 point guard, was asked to play down low defensively to make up for Clemmerâs absence and turned in a double-double with a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds to go along with four steals, two assists and one blocked shot.
Serra (18-6) had to fight through a tragic injury of its own with two minutes left in the third quarter when freshman Lexi Pearce went down with a non-contact leg injury near midcourt seconds after Morgan had hit a game-tying 3-pointer.
Pearce, who screamed in pain when she fell to the floor and had to be taken off on a stretcher, still wound up as the Lady Eaglesâ leading scorer with three 3-pointers and 17 points. She accounted for all of her teamâs scoring in the first quarter which ended with Geibel holding a 14-13 lead.
When asked what was going through their minds when they saw Pearce go down, Dumbroski, Genes and Niki Sfanos all said almost simultaneously âWe prayed.â
âThey banded together,â said Serra coach Mike Voit. âThey talked about doing it for each other. Theyâre a very tight-knit group.â
âSomething snapped for us that made us want to play for her, to want it even more,â said Dumbroski, a sophomore who scored her 1,000th career point earlier in the quarter.
After Pearce left the game, Morgan swished her fourth 3-pointer to give Geibel a 36-33 lead. Kiley Fettisâ basket pulled the Lady Eagles within 36-35 after three quarters.
Dumbroski hit consecutive shots to start the fourth quarter to give Serra a 39-36 advantage and they would not trail again.
The game was far from over though.
Genes countered a basket by Larkin with a 3-pointer to put the Lady Eagles ahead 42-38 with 5:31 remaining.
Larkin tied it with a driving basket and then two foul shots â she converted 10 of 12 free throws in the game â to knot the score at 42-42 with 4:55 left.
Dumbroski again dropped in back-to-back baskets to put her team up 46-42 with 4:10 left.
Just when it seemed Serra was about to take control, Geibel got key plays from four different players to keep its hopes alive.
Darnell grabbed an offensive rebound and hit a short jumper to cut the gap to two with 3:30 left.
Not long after Ward made one of two free throws â the second of which wound up being the winning point â the Lady Eagles came up with a turnover that sent them on a two-on-one fastbreak but Dumbroskiâs pass to Genes was stolen by a hustling Horn with 1:43 left.
Larkin then sliced the lead to one point when she was fouled on another drive and sank two pressure foul shots with 1:03 left.
The Lady Eagles held the ball until Dumbroski tried to score inside with Larkin defending but the shot went astray and Morgan came up with a clutch rebound with 32 seconds left.
Sara Larkin called timeout with 14.7 seconds left to set up the final play, which went âExactly as planned. Unfortunately we just didnât get the roll,â she said.
Emma Larkin pointed out that not many gave her team a chance to win without Clemmer in the lineup and scolded the WPIAL for seeding the Lady Gators fourth, behind Aquinas, Serra and Union, despite a 21-1 regular season with the only blemish being the one-point loss to the Lady Eagles.
âIf you look at all the other girls games itâs one versus two,â she pointed out. âI bet everybody coming in here was like, âNo. 4 seed, without Mallory Clemmer. This is going to be a blowout.â And we lose by one. With an in-and-out basket, we lose by one. Disrespect crazy.â
She admitted the slight and Clemmerâs injury lit a fire under her.
âItâs senior year,â she said. âThis is it for me, so I was going out there giving it everything Iâve got. Obviously itâs sad the way Mallory went out. But Iâm the type of person that uses that stuff to fuel me.â
Voit lauded the senior 2,000-point scorer.
âIâve said this 100 times, sheâs an outstanding player, specifically because from a scheming standpoint you know what sheâs going to do but sheâs so crafty about getting to where she wants to get, to me thatâs collegiate-level skills,â Voit said. âNo matter what you throw at her, different ways, sheâs still going to find ways to get what she wants out of it.â
Dumbroski picked up the slack with Pearce out and wound up with seven rebounds and 16 points, including eight in the fourth quarter, although she uncharacteristically missed all seven of her 3-point attempts. Genes had nine points and nine rebounds and Kinard added a game-high 14 boards.
Morgan followed Larkin in the Geibel scoring column with 15 points, Darnell contributed six points and a team-high 12 rebounds, and Horn chipped in with seven boards.
Sara Larkin discussed playing without Clemmer.
âA lot of second- and third-chance opportunities for Serra today on the offensive end because we didnât have Mal inside,â she said. âOf course it changes the game. Itâs easily a 10-to-15 point swing when she is in there for us. So we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. But everybody came through today. Alexa Morgan was huge, freshman coming up with the threes today.â
Clemmer was in uniform.
âShe wanted to be out there today so we let her dress, let her experience it,â Sara Larkin said. âShe wanted to do the tip. I said absolutely not going to happen. We need you next year.â
Voit admitted he made attempts leading up to the game to find out if Clemmer would be available or not.
âWe would be silly not to try to want to know that,â Voit said. âWho wouldnât want to know if youâre going against a (6-foot-1) big that scores (22.2 points plus 15 rebounds) a game? We were trying to find out but we prepared either way.â
Sara Larkin was surprised the Lady Eagles didnât pound the ball inside more once they knew Clemmer wouldnât play.
âI feel like they stuck with the same game plan,â she said. âI expected them to attack the hoop a lot more and they actually lived and died by the three. I know thatâs their style.â
Geibelâs style all season has been playing man-to-man defense, but they were forced to go to a zone with Clemmer out.
âWithout Mal in there it was going to be really challenging for us to man up,â Sara Larkin said. âSo we had to make that adjustment with three freshmen on the floor as I mentioned earlier. I usually have Em at the top to try to provide that defensive pressure. I had to move her underneath because I needed her for the rebounds.
âThe thought process was slow it down, get a quick rebound after that first shot and then try to run in transition.â
The shorthanded Lady Gators seemed composed and ready to play when the game began, showing very few jitters.
âAt the start of the day I was super nervous throughout school,â Darnell confessed. âWhen I got here I kind of calmed down.â
Darnell and Morgan combined to tally Geibelâs first eight points, surprisingly.
Darnell opened the scoring by calmly sinking two free throws and Morgan hit a pair of 3-pointers before Larkin got on the board with a Euro-step drive to put her team up 10-8 with 4:40 left in the opening quarter.
Pearceâs 3-pointer put Serra up 13-12 but Darnellâs bucket inside gave the Lady Gators a one-point lead after one.
Geibel bumped the margin up to four in the second quarter before Serra reeled off six straight points to go up by two. Pearce answered a Larkin basket with one of her own but Larkin was fouled with three seconds left and made both to forge a 23-23 halftime tie.
Horn sank a 3-pointer to put the Lady Gators up 26-23 early in the third quarter.
Dumbroskiâs 1,000th point came on the second of two made free throws with 6:29 left in the third in the midst of a 10-1 run that gave Serra its biggest lead, 33-27.
Geibel fired right back with a nine-point run and eventually took a 36-35 lead into what would be a hectic final frame.
Pearce was brought back out on the floor in a wheelchair to take part in the medals and trophy ceremony, which delighted her coach, teammates and fans.
The Lady Gators happily accepted the runner-up trophy with Emma Larkin smiling as she held it up to applause from the Geibel faithful on hand.
The bottom line was the Lady Gators fulfilled their dream of, as Emma Larkin always put it, âplaying at the Pete.â They had the opportunity to put their talents and mettle on display on the WPIALâs biggest stage and left it all out on the floor.
âThey fought like hell,â Sara Larkin said.
Emma Larkin added, âI couldnât be any prouder.â