Philly Summer League: Sapphire Blue (East Stroudsburg) Wins the Night's Thriller

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

HATBORO, Pa. -- A narrow win in Sapphire Blue’s first outing of the year after serving its bye on opening night and a breakout of six individual performances highlighted Thursday’s night action and the conclusion of week 1 in the Philadelphia/Suburban Women’s NCAA Basketball League at Kelly Bolish Gym, home of the AAU Renegades in Lower Bucks County.

Sapphire Blue, which is dominated by Division II East Stroudsburg, edged Orange 62-60 as Noelle Powell, an incoming freshman, and Rachel Falkowski, a junior out of Central Bucks West, each scored 10 points while Emily O’Donnell, an incoming senior at Albright out of William Tennent, scored eight points.

Orange, which got routed 69-43 on opening night by defending champion Gold, was more competitive in this one and got 17 points from Lindsey Kelly, an incoming senior at Nazareth College out of Central Bucks East.

Meanwhile, six players hit the Guru’s 20 or more points nightly performance milestone (remember, it’s still a team game) led by Saint Joseph’s sophomore Chelsea Woods, who poured 28 points for the losing Red team in a game in which her Hawks senior teammate Sarah Fairbanks had 24 for the winning Pink squad and was a perfect 7-for-7 on the foul line.

Other notable performances were by Villanova incoming sophomore Alex Louin out of Mount St. Joseph’s scoring 25 fueled by six treys in the Ted Hagedorn-coached Neon Green’s 69-60 win over the Red squad composed mostly of Division II West Chester players.

American University incoming junior Lauren Crisler out of North Penn had 21 in Gold’s 70-57 win over Royal Blue while in the same game Tyniqua Henderson, an incoming senior at Penn State-Abington out of Dobbins Tech, the alma mater of Dawn Staley, had 24 for Gold’s opponents.

Micah Morgan of the Purple squad composed of Division II USciences players like herself and is a Caravel Academy graduate scored 22 and also hit six three-pointers in the win over Kelly Green.

Only points are kept on the books.

As week one in the league ends, four teams are tied at the top of the 13-team group with 2-0 records and two more are 1-0. In playing each other Thursday night, Neon Green’s win over Maroon made both teams 1-1 and the winner gets placed ahead in the standings in a true head-to-head tie-breaker.

Four others are looking for their first win and one will break into the victory column Tuesday night when Red and Royal Blue meet in the 8:15 game on Court 2.

Sapphire Blue and Pink in the 7 p.m. game on Court 1 will determine which of the two drops from the unbeaten column.

Housekeeping Notes on Coverage, Etc.

If the Guru lists a collegiate class or doesn’t mention any, assume that player to be incoming on the collegiate roster this fall. Because longtime commissioner David Kessler listed high schools on the rosters, the Guru will mention the affiliation when he can but remember all the rosters are posted on the blog several weeks ago.

For now, the Guru is keeping standings ties in alphabetical order in his posts unless a true head-to-head tiebreak exists. The tiebreak tracker down below will be set in real order once there are enough games to deal with with multiple ties and head-to-head.

Keeping the tracker is useful by mid-July when the stretch drive is under way for the eight playoff spots. It was a big help last summer when a seven-way tie was quickly broken on the final night.

The Guru will round-up the action after each night but there are several such as this coming Tuesday when he will be at a WNBA game. You can tell if he was away because Hatboro will not be in the dateline.

That said, since the Guru makes many one-day round trips to Washington, on days the summer league doesn’t play and there is a game, those who wish to see former Saint Joseph’s and summer league star Natasha Cloud and need a ride, contact the Guru ahead and we’ll see what can be worked out.

Also, any one who wants to do the actual summer coverage that night to relieve the Guru from writing from afar, send an email.

And anyone is also invited if interested to add to the Guru roundup coverage by writing features on the players from the area Division I, 2, and 3 schools.

The other night, the Guru mentioned the league has gone to playing quarters instead of halves per the recent NCAA rules change coming this winter and also is implementing the change in number of timeouts.

That said, here’s a little more detail on the games played Thursday night.

Recaps

Neon Green 69, Maroon 60: Besides Louin’s performance previously mentioned above, Villanova junior Megan Qjuinn scored 11 for the winners (1-1). Maroon got 16 points from Kendall Benovy, a recent West Chester grad out of Hershey High. Brittany Sicinski, another recent Golden Rams grad, but out of Downingtown West, scored eight points as did Tori Smick, a W.C. junior out of Woodstown High.

Sapphire Blue 62, Orange 60: The winning performances have already been spoken to but on Orange besides Kelly’s scoring, Calypso Carty, a Utica College junior from Central Bucks West, had 11 points.

While the college representation is diverse on Orange, there is a cluster of Central Bucks West and East graduates.

Gold 70, Royal Blue 57: Besides Crisler’s 21 for Gold (2-0), Ashley Wood, a 2014 Division III Kutztown grad from Spring-Ford and the daughter of Gold coach Keith Wood, scored 16 points.

Royal Blue (0-2) got 13 points from Elizabeth Jones, a Penn State-Abington sophomore out of Saint Hubert’s.

Ash 74, Forest Green, 67: The winners, composed primarily of Division II Millersville players, got 14 points each from senior Lexi Scrivano out of Central Bucks East and senior Aunjel Van Brakle out of Shippensburg High to complete a 2-0 sweep in opening week. Alex Stan, another Millersville senior but out of Cardinal O’Hara, got all 12 of her points from four three-pointers.

Forest Green (0-2) primarily composed of Division II Holy Family got 14 points each from Lehigh junior Kiernan McCloskey and Tigers freshman Katie O’Hare, while Saint Joseph’s junior Kathleen Fitzpatrick out of Notre Dame high also matched Stan’s performance in the same game, getting 12 of her points all from four treys.

Pink 67, Red 50: Another squad with a 2-0 start, this one composed primarily of Division III Scranton, though it was Fairbanks of Saint Joseph’s, as previous mentioned, and Hawks incoming sophomore Alyssa Monaghan out of Bonner/Prendie with 13 points who paved the way to the win.

Woods with the Red team (0-2), another Hawks star, has been mentioned, but double digits were also produced by Saint Joseph’s senior Ciara Andrews out of Cheltenham High with 10 points.

Purple 66, Kelly Green 40: The USciences performance in the league gave signs of a great winter which the Devils enjoyed and now they’re off in the warm weather to a 2-0 start where Laura Trisch, a Devils sophomore out of Archbishop Wood, added 12 points behind the performance from Morgan.

Christine Verrelle, a recent Dowling College grad out of Archbishop Wood had 15 points for Kelly Green (0-2) while Kaitlyn Kelly, a DeSales sophomore out of Pennsbury High, scored eight points.

Kelly Green gets the next bye on Tuesday night when the Guru will write off the email transmission from the commissioner since he will be in Washington for the WNBA Mystics game with the Los Angeles Sparks.

Standings

Team W-L G.B. PF PA Pct.
Thru Thurs., June 18
(Ties Listed Alphabetical For Now)

Ash 2-0 –- 135 108 1.000
Gold 2-0 –- 139 100 1.000
Pink 2-0 –- 131 102 1.000
Purple 2-0 –- 127 87 1.000
Black 1-0 0.5 73 42 1.000
Sapphire 1-0 0.5 00 62 60 1.000
@-Neon Green 1-1 1.0 121 124 .500
Maroon 1-1 -- 119 123 .500
Forest Green 0-2 2.0 114 135 .000
Kelly 0-2 2.0 94 125 .000
Orange 0-2 2.0 103 137 .000
Red 0-2 2.0 92 140 .000
Royal Blue 0-2 2.0 98 131 .000
@-Head-to-Head Win

Season Results
Thurs, June 18
Gold 70, Royal Blue 57
Ash 74, Forest Green 67
Sapphire Blue 62, Orange 60
Neon Green 69, Maroon 60
Pink 67, Red 50
Purple 66, Kelly Green 40

Tues, June 16
Maroon 59, Kelly Green 54
Gold 69, Orange 43
Black 73, Red 42
Pink 64, Neon Green 52
Purple 61, Forest Green 47
Ash 61, Royal Blue 41

Looking Ahead
Tues, June 23
7 p.m.

Pink (2-0) vs. Sapphire Blue (1-0), Court 1
Neon Green (1-1) vs. Forest Green (0-2), Court 2
Purple (2-0) vs. Ash (2-0), Court 3

8:15 p.m.

Gold (2-0) vs. Maroon (1-1), Court 1
Black (1-0) vs. Orange (0-2), Court 2
Red (0-2) vs. (Royal Blue (0-2), Court 3

Bye: Kelly Green (0-2)

Thurs, June 25
7 p.m.

Orange vs. Maroon, Court 1
Red vs. Kelly Green, Court 2
Gold vs. Ash, Court 3

8:15 p.m.

Sapphire Blue vs. Purple, Court 1
Royal Blue vs. Pink, Court 2
Forest Green vs. Black, Court 2

Bye: Neon Green

Scoring 20 Points or More

28-Chelsea Woods, Red (L), vs. Pink (W) – June 18
25-Ashley Wood, Gold (W) vs Orange (L) – June 16
25-Alex Louin, Neon Green (W) vs Maroon (L) – June 18
24-Sarah Fairbanks, Pink (W) vs Red (L) – June 18
24-Tyniqua Henderson, Royal Blue (L) vs. Gold (W) – June 18
22-Micah Morgan, Purple (W), vs. Kelly Green (L) – June 18
21-Lauren Crisler, Gold (W), vs. Royal Blue – June 18

Tie-Break Tracker
True Order Coming in a Few Weeks

Pink (2-0) vs. NG (W, Red (W)
Gold (2-0) vs. O (W), RB (W)
Ash (2-0) vs. RB (W), FG (W)
Purple (2-0) vs. FG (W), KG (W)
Black (1-0) vs. Red (W)
Sapphire Blue (1-0) O(W)
Neon Green (1-1) vs. Pink (L), M(W)
Maroon (1-1) vs. KG (W), NG (L)
Kelly Green (0-2) vs. M (L), Purp (L)
Orange (0-2) vs. Gold (L), SB (L)
Forest Green (0-2) vs. Purp (L), Ash (L)
Red (0-2) vs. Blk (L), Pink (L)
Royal Blue (0-2) vs. Ash (L, Gold (L)

Don’t Forget to Like League on Facebook Page (Link to Come)








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