ALTOONA — Plenty of postgame reaction on Tuesday night from Altoona High’s Fieldhouse, where Palmyra’s super PIAA-AAA girls’ basketball playoff run came to a close after the Cougars dropped a 49-41 decision to Blackhawk in the state semifinals.
Still, a 25-5 season for Palmyra, with a runner-up finish in the Mid-Penn Keystone, a fifth-place finish in the District 3 tourney, and a trip to the Final Four in the state.
One of the few bummers: Palmyra was without starting junior forward Kristen Smoluk on Tuesday; she injured her shoulder in the state quarterfinals, and did not play against Blackhawk, the WPIAL champ, and now 27-2 overall and heading to Hershey’s Giant Center on Saturday to take on Archbishop Wood for state gold.
Happy to report that Palmyra’s players, coaches and fans walked out of Altoona’s Fieldhouse with their heads raised very high on Tuesday night.
There were some tears, yes. But plenty of cheers and smiles after the Cougars realized just how far they’d come.
Some postgame quotables from Tuesday …
WHAT THEY SAID
Palmyra junior G Maria Tukis on the Cougars’ ride — “This was the greatest thing I could ever ask for because I just these girls and our coaching staff. It’s been a crazy ride. I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for it.”
Tukis on Palmyra battling injuries to make the Final Four — “It made us stronger. All those hills and facing tough challenges have gotten us through to this point. This year was one of a kind.”
Tukis — “Four teams. Four (Class AAA) teams were playing tonight and we were one of them. Unbelievable.”
Palmyra coach Ron Berman in the aftermath — “I’m just so proud of my kids. We lost our second-leading scorer (Smoluk), but some other kids really stepped up tonight and it kept us in the game. That’s a really good team with great guards and some physical size. I thought that cost us the game; I thought they beat us up a little bit.”
Berman on reaching the Final Four — “Our kids have so much heart. We have winning kids who come together from different sports, and they’ve bonded together to form a pretty good basketball team.”
Berman on Palmyra going 54-5 the last two seasons — “We’ve had back-to-back exceptional seasons. We have a great program going on and we’ve done a really good job molding athletes into basketball players who take a lot of pride in playing great defense. If you play great D you stay in a lot of games. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t make enough shots to overcome these guys (Blackhawk).”
Berman on Blackhawk winning rebounding battle 40-22 — “We have away about 2 or 3 inches per player on the inside, no matter what matchup I had in there. They just out-muscled us and did a nice job. There were just a couple of bad matchups for us. I take my hat off to them. They’re well coached and they run a lot of great sets.”
Blackhawk junior G Chassidy Omogrosso on going to Hershey for the state finals — “It’s the greatest feeling in the world. This has been a dream of ours to get to go and play in the state championship game, and to be one of the top two teams in the in AAA is just an amazing feeling for me and all the girls.”
Omogrosso on overcoming Palmyra to punch ticket to title game — “We always have three goals: Win the section, win the WPIAL and win the state. The last few years we’ve fallen short in the WPIAL. Now this year we won the WPIAL, so to get to the state final is just an unbelievable feeling.”
Omogrosso on Blackhawk’s rebounding edge — “That was tremendous. All of our posts — Courtney Vannoy, Danielle Levato, Mariah Evans, everybody — they all rebounded and they all did a tremendous job. I’m so happy they’re my teammates.”
Blackhawk coach Steve Lodovico on making the state finals — “It means a lot. This has been one of our goals all along. We were one step away last year (Cougars lost to South Park in the semifinals). This wasn’t our best performance, but we were able to overcome some adversity with Chassidy on the bench with two fouls and bringing two freshmen (Madison Amalia and Breanna Hoover) in off the bench. So we weathered that storm.”
Lodovico on Blackhawk’s 11-2 second-quarter run — “We needed that because we didn’t want to go zone (when Palmyra tied it at 19-all) because we feel like our defensive pressure can shut down some teams. But I thought we did a good job there.”
Lodovico on Blackhawk’s board work — “Danielle Levato and Courtney Vannoy have been great rebounding for us all season. I think they each had 11 rebounds tonight, so that’s 22 rebounds just out of those two. They’ve been doing that every game. I think that was the difference here.”