The Guru Report: Villanova Tops Penn to Clinch Big 5 Title Share

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

VILLANOVA, Pa. – More than three decades after a group of coaches, media-relations types, and some media met in center city at Doc Watson’s Pub across the street from Jefferson Hospital, to launch the women’s version of the Philadelphia Big Five, the last of the mentors at that historic meeting is going out with a piece of City Series glory.

A strong second half here at Finneran Pavilion by Harry Perretta’s Villanova Wildcats Wednesday night carried the home team to a 70-58 win over Penn to clinch a tie for the Big Five championship.

As agonizing that the loss was for the Quakers (10-3, 2-1 Big Five) in a year in which they seemed headed for their first outright 4-0 crown that is now no longer possible for them or any of the other four schools, they still have  a chance to share the title with Villanova (10-7, 3-1) by beating Temple next Thursday at the Owls’ McGonigle Hall at 3-1 otherwise it will be Temple with their hands along with the Wildcats on the local trophy.

For Penn, which at one point in the first half held an 11-point lead, coming after Saturday’s home loss to then-No. 25 Princeton in the Ivy opener at The Palestra, the 38-22 second half domination sent the Quakers to consecutive losses for the first time since the front portion of the 2017-18 season when they fell to La Salle 66-59 on Nov. 29, 2017 at Tom Gola Arena and then at home to No. 2 Notre Dame 66-54 in The Palestra on Dec. 9.

Prior to the start of this season, Perretta announced his retirement this spring after spending all 42 seasons here on the Main Line for his collegiate coaching career.

Soon after the game concluded, one felt a bolt of internal emotion knowing the last chapters are approaching as Villanova’s media liaison Dean Kenefick stuck his head in the door to inform, “Harry finishes in the Big Five at 122-40,” which is the local women’s all-time City Series record resulting in 17 outright or shared titles.

The Wildcats are 31-6 in their last 37 City Series appearances.

“I just think the second half was probably the best second half we played all year,” Perretta said of a relatively youthful roster. “At halftime, I told the kids, `Look, I don’t think we can win a high-scoring game. We’re just not built that way.

“With a minute and a half, Penn only scored 16 points in the second half. We scored the ball, don’t get me wrong, but still the defense was the key to the game. The first half, they just chewed us up.”

As has been the recent surge with Villanova shaking off an 0-3 season start to go 10-4 in the Wildcats’ last 14 games, they got the win with something old in senior Mary Gedaka, the daughter of former Villanova star Lisa Angelotti, who had 21 points and nine rebounds, and something new in Maddy Siegrist, who has already collected seven Big East freshman of the week honors and in one of the weeks got both the player and newcomer award from the conference besides getting national freshman citations twice from the United States Basketball Writers Assocciation.

Siegrist, a native of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who sat out last season as a redshirt designate, was 11-for-17 from the field, including 5-of-8 three-pointers, and blocked two shots and had two steals.

Bridget Herlihy scored 13 points on the strength of three three-pointers while Cameron Onken grabbed 12 rebounds.

Penn also has a sensational newcomer in Kayla Padilla, who has gotten similar multi honors from the Ivy League and a USBWA freshman of the week designation. She continued to impress with 23 points and also fired three three-balls, while Phoebe Sterba scored nine points off three three-pointers. Eleah Parker scored 10 points and blocked three shots.

 In getting one more Big Five crown, Perretta said, “It’s just unbelievable. For me, I’m a Philly guy. (Penn coach Mike McLaughlin) gave me a piece of the Palestra floor. It was the greatest gift, ever. I’m going to sleep with it tonight. Because I’m from Philly, it’s special.

“It’s fun, even if we had lost. During the game you act crazy but when the game is over, it’s over.”

Perretta has been getting gifts from the opposition at each game this season. 

Back in November when Penn was blasting opponents from the opening tip and Villanova was struggling, it was suggested to Perretta it’s a good thing the Wildcats would see the Quakers later on in the schedule.

“You’re right. We’ve gotten better as the year has gone on,” he said.

 The Wildcats have already had a highlight Big East road weekend winning at Seton Hall and in overtime at St. John’s and are 4-2 alone in third place in the conference.

“We’ve gotten better as a team,” Perretta said. “Mary really did a great job in the second half, obviously her and Maddy have to score the ball for us to win. But we got contributions from (Samantha Carangi), in the first half, Bridget kept us in the game by making some threes, so other people are starting to step up.”

Gedaka was thrilled to go out in the series with another title following last season’s 4-0 sweep.

“Coming into the second half, we really wanted to focus on slowing the game down,” she said. “Keeping it at our pace and my team responded unbelievably well. Especially, we’re really not used to playing a press and a zone, so we did a really good job.

“It is really surreal, to be honest with you,” Gedaka said of the title in which the one setback was a narrow loss at Temple. “I still feel like a freshman if you can believe that. Coming out and clinching a title for coach Perretta and all my teammates is really a dream come true.

“We always have that goal coming into the season and winning the title. Even if we didn’t win it outright this year, it’s so amazing because the Big Five is such a competitive league that we always are excited to play in.

“So with it being Harry’s last year and with my mom, I’ve had this tradition in my life so I have an understanding how awesome and exciting this league is. So being able to win it for him is a dream come true.”

In doing the autopsy on how it didn’t go for Penn, McLaughlin said, “Two parts. I thought the first half, especially first quarter, I thought we were really in a good offensive flow, we got the ball up and down the floor, that’s what we needed to do.

“As the game went on, I think we became more grind it out, possession by possession in the half-court, that isn’t what we really wanted to do,” McLaughlin said. “Give them a lot of credit. They made some really difficult big shots at the right time. They got the 50-50 balls more times than we did at critical spots in the game.

“Unfortunately, in the first half, we played really, well, the second half we didn’t take advantage of the situation in front of us. I think the inside game was better but still not the dominate thing it’s going to take so we do have a presence outside,” he said.

“Eleah was much better than she’s played but we need more out of that group than we got tonight. If we don’t get that, Kayla is going to get jammed and it’s going to be a difficult situation going forward.

“I did like the improvement that Eleah made tonight, but frankly, it wasn’t enough.”

McLaughlin conceded with six days until the Temple game, there is time to regroup.

“Yeah, I told them, we just got to be a better basketball team, practice by practice. It was very similar to what happened in the Princeton game is we didn’t play as well in the second half as we did in the first. What I was disappointed in was we repeated a lot of things we did in the second half with Princeton.

“I didn’t see the improvement a coach wants to see. We’ll have to go back at that and hopefully we’ll get better.”

Villanova is now 44-3 in the series with Penn while the Wildcats and Princeton are the only two to reach 70 points against the Quakers.

As for this being the last time he will go against Perretta in the Big Five wars, McLaughlin said, “I’m just going to miss him. He’s going to come to my practices.

“ I’m going to miss the man, seeing him on the sidelines, I love to see him out there and refreshed, he’s done a lot for the women’s game, he’s known nationally, I consider him a friend, always will. 

“He’s a special guy, he’s always unique in his own way. He’s special to the game. I’m going to miss him yelling at his players and shooting a couple of words across to me. I have great respect for him. He’s a really good man.”

While Penn is off until the Temple game, Villanova returns to the Big East wars, hosting Georgetown here at 6 p.m. here Saturday, which is the annual homecoming day with an alumni game at 3:30 p.m. and reception afterwards.

One alum expected to return is Drexel coach Denise Dillon, considered a prominent candidate to succeed Perretta should Villanova comes calling and she so desires.

Coincidentally, Sunday, when Drexel plays again, hosting local CAA rival Delaware, it will be the Dragons’ homecoming day.

La Salle and Saint Joseph’s Suffer More Atlantic Ten Setbacks

Saint Joseph’s dropped its third straight conference game, losing to Rhode Island 49-47 at home in Hagan Arena on the front end of a double header with the men while La Salle lost its 10^th straight overall, falling on the road to Massachusetts 76-62 in a conference game in Amherst at the Minutewomen’s Mullin’s Center.

In a closely-fought battle down the stretch, the Hawks (7-9, 1-3 A-10) went ahead with 38 seconds left on a shot from Lula Roig, but 10 seconds later Nicole Jorgensen hit two foul shots for the Rams (9-7, 2-2) under first-year coach Tammi Reiss and Saint Joseph’s couldn’t score on the next possession .

Reiss had been an assistant at Syracuse and was the backcourt mate with Dawn Staley at Virginia in the early 1990s.

Katie Jekot almost single-handedly carried Saint Joseph’s to a successful finish, scoring 13 of her 17 points in the final 7:15 of the contest in which she led both sides with four steals.

Gabby Smalls had 12 points and six rebounds.

It was Saint Joseph’s first loss at home to Rhode Island since 1996 over two decades ago.

The Hawks are back at Hagan Saturday at noon against Duquesne with the matchup to be nationally televised on the CBS Sports Network.

La Salle got 29 points from freshman Claire Jacobs, part of the twin sister combo with Amy from Australia, but the Explorers allowed the Minutewomen a slew of trips to the foul line as UMass pulled away at the finish for a 76-62 win.

Early in the non-conference schedule, La Salle reached 6-1 matching the entire win total of a year ago when Mountain MacGillivray took over as coach. 

But that’s been it since then, though some of the setbacks were very narrow in Big Five losses at home to Villanova and Temple.

Jacobs was 12-of-18 from the floor for La Salle (6-11, 0-4 A-10) while Shalina Miller had one block to tie Amy Griffin’s career mark in the program at 151.

Kayla Spruill had 11 points and 10 rebounds for the visitors and blocked two shots while Kate Hill dealt eight assists.

Off the bench for UMass (14-3, 4-0), Sam Breen had 22 points and 12 rebounds while Hailey Leidel had 18 points, and Paige McCormick and Bre Hampton-Bey each scored 10 points.

The Minutewomen shot 25-for-29 from the line while the Explorers were 11-for-14.

La Salle comes home Sunday to host St. Bonaventure at 3 p.m. on the NBC Sports Network.

Lehigh Streak Continues in the Patriot League

Down at halftime and the third quarter the Mountain Hawks fought back for a 60-53 victory over Navy in Annapolis in a Patriot League game at the Naval Academy as Lehigh’s road start is best in the program’s history at 7-0. 

It’s the sixth straight win for Lehigh (13-3, 5-0 Patriot), the best conference start in 15 seasons.

Camryn Buhr and Cameryn Benz each scored 13 points for Lehigh while Megan Walker scored 11 against Navy (5-11, 0-5).

Lehigh returns home Saturday at Stabler Arena to meet Bucknell in a battle of Patriot League unbeatens.

Small Colleges: Sweep Lands Holy Family, USciences, Jefferson, Lincoln and Rowan in Winner’s  Circle

Holy Family continues to stay perfect in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) after beating Georgian Court 67-58 at home in the Tigers’ Campus Center in Northeast Philadelphia.

Elizabeth Radley scored a game-high 19 points for the Tigers (10-5, 8-0 CACC) to move within 36 of reaching her 1,000^th career point. Safiyah Lee had 16 points for the Lions (4-10, 2-5).

Holy  Family, coached by former Penn associate head coach Bernadette Laukaitis, next travels to North Jersey Saturday to play Bloomfield College at 1 p.m.

USciences since its opening home loss to Holy Family has continued to win, a streak enhanced by one more game Wednesday when the Devils defeated Caldwell 72-32 at home at Bobby Morgan Arena in Southwest Philadelphia.

The Devils (14-3, 7-1) were two points short of matching the lowest opposition scoring limit in eight seasons.

Irisa Ye had a game-high 19 points, in 21 minutes shooting 3 of 4 three-pointers, Jess Huber scored 18 in 22 minutes against Caldwell (3-14, 3-5).

USciences is back in Bobby Morgan at 1 p.m. Saturday hosting Post, which leads the North Division.

Jefferson got nearer to .500 overall rallying to beat Goldey-Beacom 63-55 at home in the Gallagher Center.  

Alynna Williams had 20 points, five assists, and three steals for the Rams (7-8, 4-3 CACC) while Allie Warren scored 18 points and had eight rebounds against the Lightning (1-14, 1-16). Reserve Sabria Lytes had 13 points as Tom Shirley picked up his 784^th career win of which 635 have been at Jefferson, formerly called Philadelphia University.

Alexis Harrison scored 16 for Golden-Beacom.

Jefferson next visits Dominican (N.Y.) Saturday at 2:05 p.m. which will be televised on the NCAA Division II twitter and facebooks pages as part of the Division II Showcase.

Meanwhile, an explosive third period led to Lincoln’s best win of the season, an upset of nationally-ranked Virginia Union 76-46 in a Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) game at home in Manuel Rivero Hall.

The Lions (15-3, 5-1 CIAA)  are currently ranked No. 7 in the D2SIDA Atlantic Region Poll, while the Panthers (12-2, 4-1) were ranked first in the Atlantic Region poll, 5^th in the WBCA Division II Coaches Poll, and ninth in the D2SIDA National Top 25 poll.

Kwanza Murray and DeAshia Young each scored 22 points, while Alisia Machado had 10 points and 16 rebounds, and Bryanna Brown scored 11. Additionally, Young dealt eight assists and is currently the CIAA leader in that category. 

Murray became the third person in Lions history to connect with 100 three-pointers and her total three on the night moved her into second place behind Courtney Smith’s 188 with 102.

  Up in North Jersey in Union, Rowan after its upset loss at Montclair State bounced back into the winners’ column, beating Kean 71-65 in a NJAC game.

Nicole Mallard had a career-high 25 points, while Elianna Santana had 15 points and Ayanna Johnson, who is third in Division III in rebounds and blocked shots had 26 carooms, and seven blocked shots for the Profs (13-2, 7-1 NJAC).

Rowan is tied for first with The College of New Jersey but holds the top spot off head-to-head competition.

Payce Lang had 22 points, including her 1,000^th career point, for Kean (10-5, 6-2).

Rowan next hosts Rutgers-Newark Saturday at 1 p.m. in Glassboro.

Looking Ahead: Rider/Marist Showdown in the MAAC

Thursday night, Rider at 3-0 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, coming off last week’s first-ever win of Quinnipiac heads to preseason favorite Marist, which is 4-0, at 7 p.m. in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Temple, with a four-game winning streak, hosts USF at 7 p.m. in an American Athletic Conference game in McGonigle Hall.

And the two Guru local of the 11 D-1 teams who are in the Big Ten and also play Thursday night, slam into each other the first time this season as second-place Rutgers meets Penn State on the road at the Lady Lions’ Bryce Jordan Center in State College.

Nationally, a huge showdown in the PAC-12 as Stanford visits Oregon at 9 p.m. on EPN and ESPN2.

And that’s the report.