GRATERFORD — All good things must come to an end, and No. 5 Downingtown East came to Perkiomen Valley Friday night and ended the Vikings’ chances for a fourth straight District 1-6A title.
Charlotte Aldridge scored all 14 of her points after halftime after sitting the entire first half due to a coaching decision, tying teammate Grace Hodges for the game high as the Cougars upended No. 4 seed PV 36-28 in a hard-fought quarterfinal.
A 15-1 run spread between the third and fourth quarters turned a tight, low-scoring battle into a double-digit Downingtown East lead, more than enough on an evening where points came at a premium.
“Our (senior) class has been together for so long, and it’s a game we’ve been building to,” said Aldridge, a UTEP commit.
“We wanted this for a while,” added Hodges, who’ll play at Immaculata next year. “Since we were sophomores it’s been a goal to make this kind of run in districts, and doing it against a great team like Perkiomen Valley, we knew we’d have to stay together.”
While the first half certainly won’t make any offensive highlight reels at the end of the season, Downingtown East was able to match PV’s signature tight defense, physicality and gritty work on the perimeter, limiting the Vikings (22-4 overall) to just two field goals and carrying a 9-5 lead into the halftime break.
PV responded by grabbing a 14-13 lead midway through the third, but Aldridge asserted herself inside and out, bookending a couple of layups around a deep 3-pointer. Meanwhile, Hodges beat the third-period buzzer with a layup off an inbounds pass, then opened the fourth with a triple of her own to give the Cougars (19-6) their largest lead of the night at 26-15.
PV rallied gamely with triples from Kate Nemic, Megan King and Lauren Binkowski, but two more three-point possessions from Aldridge – one another shop from deep, the other an old-fashioned three-point play – salted away the win for the Cougars and sent D-East into a Wednesday quarterfinal against the winner of Saturday’s Garnet Valley-Upper Dublin tilt.
Hannah Evans led Perk Valley with nine points but fouled out alongside King in the fourth quarter. The loss – the first for Perkiomen Valley in over three years against a District 1 opponent – sends the Vikings into playbacks to determine seeding when they embark on their 6A state title defense in two weeks.
“You’ll have those games,” said Perkiomen Valley head coach John Russo, “where we just don’t catch and play well.
“We just played the PAC title game, and a pair of district games, and it’s the wrong mentality to expect that any group of kids can go on winning all of these games (indefinitely).”
Russo gave immeasurable credit to Downingtown East’s players and coaching staff, echoing thoughts shared just moments earlier by Aldridge and Hodges.
“It was a very defensive game,” said Hodges. “We were told to concentrate on winning each 1-on-1 matchups, and I felt like we matched up well tonight.”
“We know they can shoot the lights out, and that run in the fourth quarter showed it,” added Aldridge. “When they hit the back-to-back 3s, we knew a moment like that was coming. They weren’t going to go away, but we were stout at the beginning.”
The journey through playbacks is a new one for this group of PV players, and Russo admitted he’s interested to see what the Vikings can learn from the experience.
“Sometimes, you have nights where the ball just isn’t going into the basket,” he concluded. “But we’re going to prepare for our opponent on Wednesday with the same goal of winning a basketball game.”
Downingtown East 36, Perkiomen Valley 28
Downingtown East — 6 3 14 13 — 36
Perkiomen Valley — 4 1 10 13 — 28
Downingtown East: Aldridge 5 2-3 14, Hunold 0 3-8 3, Boyd 0 0-0 0, Hodges 6 0-0 14, Schildknecht 1 1-1 3, Johnson 1 0-0 2, Martin 0 0-0 0, Totals 13 6-11 36.
Perkiomen Valley: Lee 1 1-2 3, Nemic 1 0-0 3, Binkowski 2 0-2 5, Evans 4 1-2 9, King 1 3-6 6, Russo 1 0-0 0, Crowe 0 0-0 0, Lindsay 0 0-0 0, Totals 10 5-12 58.
3-pointers: Downingtown East- Aldridge 2, Hodges 2; Perkiomen Valley- Binkowski, King, Nemic.
