UPPER DUBLIN \u2013 Just because something is expected does not mean it is any less appreciated.<\/p>\n
The Upper Dublin girls basketball team has been a fixture in the PIAA Tournament under coach Morgan Funsten. Wednesday night, the Cardinals had little trouble securing their place in it this season, the top seed in the District 1-6A field rolling past No. 16 Bensalem 64-25 in their second-round contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s got a little different feel this year cause I think our girls have some bigger goals,\u201d Funsten said. \u201cBut it\u2019s just something that we don\u2019t take for granted, something we\u2019re very proud of that we\u2019ve been able to consistently do. So, yeah, the win to get into states is always great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upper Dublin has now made states in each of the last five years and 12 times in Funsten\u2019s 14 seasons, a successful run that includes a PIAA-4A championship in 2018. The only years the Cards did not reach states were 2014 and 2021 \u2013 UD advancing to the district 6A semifinals in the latter but that season, shortened due to COVID-19, saw just one team qualify.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consistency is something I\u2019m really proud of and, I mean, the girls are just amazing,\u201d Funsten said. \u201cThe girls this year, they\u2019ve taken things to another level with their leadership and their togetherness. They\u2019ve worked hard at it and they not only have worked hard to become better individual players, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever had a team work as hard to become a team as this team has and it shows in practice and it shows in games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tamia Clark led all scorers with 18 points, collecting 16 of those in the first half. Emilia Coleman recorded half of her 14 points in the third quarter while Ella Morris chipped in eight of her 10 points after the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re really focused on districts cause that is something that we can definitely do and it\u2019s something we really want to do,\u201d said UD senior guard Megan Ngo, who had eight points. \u201cBut knowing that we could still have states after is really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upper Dublin advances to host No. 8 Garnet Valley in the semifinals 1 p.m. Saturday. The Jaguars defeated No. 9 William Tennent 53-35.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s what makes us want it even more and especially for me, I\u2019ll just say, this is my last year, I know the talent that we have and the opportunities that we have,\u201d Ngo said. \u201cI think, especially, I know me, Emilia, Tamia have talked about it before, I think we just really are trying to have fun but also we really want to win and we really want to keep playing together, cause it\u2019s been so fun this year. And I think we just are practicing really hard, playing really hard because we just don\u2019t want it to end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grace McShane had 10 points for Bensalem (18-7), which can still earn its first PIAA appearance since 1983 through district playbacks. The Owls visit William Tennent Saturday.<\/p>\n
Prior to Wednesday, Upper Dublin last played last Tuesday when the Cards completed a six-games-in-nine-days stretch by topping Central Bucks East for their second straight Suburban One League Tournament title. Against Bensalem, the start was a tad slow by the Cardinals\u2019 standards \u2013 UD trailing 4-3 after four straight points from McShane \u2013 but Clark got Upper Dublin\u2019s offense going with a personal 6-0 run to make it 9-4 and eventually the shots began to fall for the hosts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played five games in six days and we were in such a competitive routine of preparing and showing up and playing hard and repeating that,\u201d Funsten said. \u201cAnd then we played Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we had two days off and then we played CB East in the (SOL) championship, now we just had eight days off, we didn\u2019t scrimmage so I was expecting a little bit of rust and I think that\u2019s how you could kind of describe the first half.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually thought the girls were playing fine, just couldn\u2019t make a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cardinals led 15-6 after the opening eight minutes with Clark starting the second quarter with six consecutive points, the junior\u2019s two free throws at 5:36 putting UD up 21-6.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole first half I was like we just got to keep shooting,\u201d Ngo said. \u201cI really thought that we played well in the first half, it was really just we weren\u2019t making our shots and they play that good 1-3-1 zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bensalem cut the margin to 13 twice, the last time at 25-12 after a Sydney Daut basket but the Cardinals capped the half with an 8-2 run, getting 3-pointers from Ngo and Coleman then a Clark bucket to lead 33-14 at intermission.<\/p>\n
UD began the third with two baskets off steals \u2013 first by Ngo then Morris \u2013 while Bridget DiMartile and Morris drained 3-pointers to make it 43-14. A Coleman bucket off a Ngo assist finished a 12-0 run to have the Cards up 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still had a pretty good lead at halftime,\u201d Ngo said. \u201cI really thought we just had to focus on us and I thought we came the third quarter strong and did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upper Dublin 64, Bensalem 25<\/p>\n
Bensalem 6 8 4 7 \u2013 25<\/p>\n
Upper Dublin 15 18 17 14 \u2013 64<\/p>\n
Bensalem: Grace McShane 4 2-2 10; Sydney Daut 3 0-0 6; Kaleaya Wingate 1 0-0 3; Kamiya Alexander 1 0-0 2; Mary Beck 1 0-0 2; Kylie O\u2019Neil 0 2-2 2; Totals 10 4-4 25.<\/p>\n
Upper Dublin: Tamia Clark 6 5-6 18; Emilia Coleman 6 0-0 14; Ella Morris 4 0-0 10; Megan Ngo 3 0-0 8; Ryniah Sharpe 2 0-0 5; Bridget DiMartile 1 0-0 3; Shannon Connaughton 1 0-0 2; Lexi Ngo 1 0-0 2; Julia Scullen 1 0-0 2; Totals 25 5-6 64.<\/p>\n
3-pointers: B-Wingate; UD-Coleman 2, Morris 2, M. Ngo 2, Clark, DiMartile, Sharpe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER DUBLIN \u2013 Just because something is expected does not mean it is any less appreciated. The Upper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[191,193,192,194,305,53967,200,28,726,1444],"class_list":["post-118264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township","tag-high-school-sports","tag-montco-high-scores-nl","tag-montgomery-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-lan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}