TOWAMENCIN – Despite the holiday season being in full swing, the Lady Knights were not in a very giving mood on Tuesday night, as their defense shut down an unbeaten CB South offense, en route to a dominating 44-25 win in front of their home crowd.
“When you only give up 25 points that just goes to show you that you played good defense and you shut down their best players, which we did tonight,” said senior tri-captain Erin Maher.
The Lady Knights (4-0) got off to a slow start in the opening moments of the contest, giving up crucial turnovers. However they were soon jumpstarted by sophomore Mikaela Giuliani with a strong offensive effort as she scored North Penn’s first two baskets. The Lady Knights would finish off the first quarter with an early lead of 11-3 after seniors Maher and Vicky Tumasz and sophomore Mikaela Giuliani began to increase the offensive pace. North Penn’s success on both sides on the ball continued for the remainder of the first half as senior Erin Maher patrolled the paint defensively and freshman Irisa Ye and Sam Carangi contributed to the offensive success.
“I thought over all our defense was very good, and take away the first couple minutes of the game, I thought our rebounding was very good. We need to lessen our turnovers; at times our passing was amazing and then at times it was a little sloppy. Their number 40, Lofton, we had to keep her in check,” said head coach Maggie deMarteleire.
The Lady Knights continued to operate on all four cylinders as they began the second half with a 20-8 lead over the Titans (4-1). CB South was unable to get any momentum going in the third quarter as they were unable to produce against North Penn’s dominant defense lead by Maher and Bri Cullen.
“We played a lot better on defense. Alysha Lofton was the best player on their team so we had to help a lot, Bri [Cullen] did a great job on defense and we had to keep them off the boards. We knew they were going to be aggressive like they are every single year so we really had to backdoor them,” commented senior tri-captain Tumasz.
The Titans would not be able to reciprocate the strong effort on both sides of the ball as the Lady Knights nailed down the 44-25 voctory. North Penn who remains undefeated will move on to face CB East Friday in their next league game.
“We obviously have to focus the next two days at practice and get ready for CB East, we know they have a lot of size and especially strong guards so we have to be ready in all aspects of the game,” added Maher.