Defending Champs End Lady Aces' Best Season Ever

Mount Lebanon is the twice-defending PIAA Class AAAA champion. Lower Merion was in the Final Four for the first time in school history.

And Tuesday night, unfortunately for the upstart Lady Aces, that was the way it looked.

The team's Cinderella run through the state playoffs came to a screeching halt in Chambersburg, where they turned the ball over 22 times and fell to the Blue Devils, 62-35.

Aces' head coach Lauren Pellicane put the loss, and the season, in perspective.

"They've got to be real proud of themselves for the run we had and the way we've competed for the last month. We ran into a special team though tonight. There's a reason they're two-time defending champions," said Pellicane.

The disappointing performance didn't appear a matter of jitters for the Aces. Lower Merion came out strong early, demonstrating an ability to beat the Blue Devils off the dribble.

Rosie Stahler, Sheba Hall and Lila Jones, who led the Aces with 14, each beat their defender for an uncontested layup in the first period, and, after finishing the initial period tied at 12, the Aces took a lead when Carmen Torres got a putback off her own miss to start the second.

14-12 was as good as it got though for the Aces.

The defending champs put on a scoring clinic, led by the unguardable trio of Kelly Johnson, Emma Pellicano, and Madison Cable, each of whom finished the night in double figures. The Blue Devils drained three quick jumpers to take an 18-14 lead and didn't look back.

"I definitely thought we beat ourselves in the second quarter. Little by little they just took us down and we made mistakes. I don't know if some of our kids played scared, but we weren't the same team that defended the way we did on Friday," said Pellicane.

Compounding the Aces' escalating problems, following a collision under their basket, a Mount Lebanon guard came down hard on Hall's compartmental syndrome-inflicted right leg. Hall wasn't the same for the rest of the game, depriving the team of their best chance to make up the fast-growing deficit.

"After that [my legs] just hurt really bad. It was hard to get up and down the court," Hall said.

Lebanon's 18-14 lead swelled to 28-16 by the time the half came, and further grew to 42-19 by midway through the third period. Outside of Lila Jones, the Aces' offense couldn't get anything going, and their usually stout defense—the same defense that held an explosive Cardinal O'Hara team to 29 points —looked overmatched and confused.

In a little over a period of basketball, the Blue Devils had ripped off a 30-5 run and effectively dashed the Aces' dream of crashing the championship game.

"Our defense was terrible. Our communication was terrible. We've had a problem with that all year, and this is the game we needed it, and it didn't happen. Calling out screens, helping, we didn't help each other. We weren't good," said Jones.

As they've done all season, they battled. On Tuesday, though, it wasn't enough.

With 30 seconds remaining in the final period, and the Aces facing an insurmountable 60-35 deficit, the last of the Aces seniors left the court for the final time. It was a powerful moment for players and spectators alike.

"Nobody likes losing like that, but you cry because it's over and it's been such a good experience. We've gotten, over the last two weeks especially, extremely close. We became like a family at the end of the season. We really achieved something nobody else thought we could," said departing senior Carli Swartz.

Fellow senior Lila Jones agreed.

"Right now I'm focused on the loss, but it was a good season, and we got far. We certainly surpassed expectations—our own and others'," said Jones.

Their coach added that it was a great season, the ending notwithstanding. Her girls have accomplished a great deal.

"I'm proud of our seniors, I'm proud of our group as a whole. If before the season someone had said we'd be playing in the state semi-finals, I'd have said 'are you sure about that?' It's a great accomplishment for this group."