Abington girls lose big to William Tennent

WARMINSTER — The embarrassment suffered Tuesday night served as a necessary gut check, or foreshadowed a quick postseason for the Abington girls basketball team.

It's up to the Galloping Ghosts to decide.

The Galloping Ghosts put forth their most frigid effort on one of winter's coldest nights, losing 41-25 to a William Tennent team it had beaten handily earlier in the year.

Scoring a season-low 25 points, which included a two-point second quarter and an 11-for-55 performance from the floor, stoked the ire of head coach Dan Marsh, who held a lengthy postgame meeting with his team.

"I don't get it," Marsh said. "It was uninspired, terrible basketball, and this team is too experienced and too good to pull a game like they did tonight. This was an important game, and they did so many things poorly."

The return of guard Chynna West, who missed five games with a concussion, didn't help. A starter who Marsh calls the "engine" was understandably rusty, committing four of the team's 13 turnovers. Naturally competitive, West also committed her fourth foul late in the second quarter.

"I was probably trying to do too much," West said. "I'm always pushing, pushing, pushing, and I realized that coming back from two weeks off, I can't do that. I got early fouls, which I normally don't do. It was a bad night for me."

While Aiyannah Peal and Sarah Listenbee tried to compensate, the shots wouldn't fall, period. The Ghosts never found the rhythm that allowed them to take down Council Rock South last week and run off a 10-2 mark in the Suburban One National Conference. They trailed 11-4 after the first quarter and 22-6 at the half.

Jessica Schmidt and Jamie Schectman led Abington with six points each, two points more than the combined effort of West and Peal. At one point, the Panthers led by 20 points.

"It didn't start off well, and then I think everyone was trying to do it themselves," said forward Carli Fitzgerald, who had three points. "We were down early, so if we had a shot, we'd took it. I know I went outside of my role and took shots I shouldn't have taken. We weren't playing as a team."

Like in the Feb. 4 win over Bensalem, the Ghosts seemed to be searching for consistency on both sides. They were constantly beaten off the dribble by Ashley Alden or Liz Koval, as the Panthers (14-6) easily pushed the ball up court.

The Ghosts were no match for Alden, who scored a game-high 14 points. Melissa Wasserleben had eight, and Melissa Horn and Koval five each.

Defensively, William Tennent closed off the lanes.

"Tonight, we decided to pack it in and force them to shoot from the outside, and it worked," Panthers head coach Paul Veltre said. "We wanted to focus on rebounding the ball, and we held the lead that we got. I was very pleased with the way our seniors played, especially tonight."

Marsh found it difficult to take something out of the loss, especially since it comes so close to the dawn of the playoffs.

"I'm tired of taking stuff out of losses and told them that," he said. "I'm done with this nonsense. It's time to get down. This was like a playoff game. It was important."

Also important may be the effect on Abington's district seeding. With eight conference losses, the Ghosts could tumble from the top 16 teams, forcing them to play on the road for the opening round, something that rarely happens.

"It was already an uphill climb, but now it's an uphill climb on a greased pole," Marsh said. "It's not going to get any prettier. Who knows who we're going to play or where? We don't control that anymore. We're used to controlling our playoff destiny. It's not happening this year."

The only thing the Ghosts can still control is how they'll play against Pennsbury and in the playoffs.

 "It's going to be a different road from last year," Fitzgerald said. "Last year, we knew we were a top eight seed, so we knew we'd have home games. But home or away, we have to play better."