Backyard Brawl: Saints, Spartans set to battle for spot in District 3 title game
By Sean McBryan — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
Berks Catholic and Wyomissing, the last standing Berks Girls League teams, face each other Monday at 6 p.m. in a District 3 Class 4A girls basketball semifinal at Wolf Gymnasium.
The second-seeded Saints (19-6) advanced with a 52-28 quarterfinal win over Bishop McDevitt; the third-seeded Spartans (24-2) topped Middletown 51-38. Those wins clinched a state tournament berth for each.
The winner will face either top-seeded and defending champ Delone Catholic or fourth-seeded Eastern York in the championship Thursday at 11 a.m. at Giant Center. The loser plays in the third-place game Thursday at 7 at the home of the highest-seeded team.
Berks Catholic cruised to the 24-point victory over Bishop McDevitt, an impressive win considering it was playing without its third-leading scorer and tallest player, Sydney Corado. Corado will be out again Monday as she’s battling an illness.
Many expected the Saints to face the Spartans for the BCIAA title.
“We knew we’d probably see them at some point,” Berks Catholic head coach Bob Birmingham said of the Spartans. “We thought we’d see them a little bit earlier in the year.”
Sophomore guard Madison Langdon scored 18 points and held McDevitt’s top scorer Sophia Formica 11 points below her season average in the quarterfinals. Langdon is second on the team in scoring at 11.4 per game.
Chestnut Hill College commit and 1,000-point scorer Caraline Herb is the Saints’ leading scorer at 14.7 points per game. Herb scored 17 against McDevitt and is another skilled perimeter defender who can crash the boards and handle the ball.
Sophomore 5-8 forward Molly McFadden averages 8.3 points — the same as Corado — and will be key defensively and on the glass in attempting to neutralize Berks Girls Player of the Year Amaya Stewart.
Senior Sydney Brown will again likely slide into the starting lineup with Corado’s absence and is joined by junior guard Gianna Roberts.
Brown had five points and Roberts four to help pick up the slack offensively against McDevitt.
Junior 5-8 forward Kylee Evans saw significant minutes against McDevitt and could be part of the rotation tasked with guarding Stewart.
Sophomore Giana Mirenda also played adequate minutes in the quarterfinal win.
Stewart has been on a tear in leading the Spartans to eight straight wins, including their first BCIAA title. They last lost Jan. 21 to McDevitt.
The 6-1 Stewart averaged 14.9 points in the regular season and has boosted her play in four playoff games.
She had 18 points and 13 rebounds against Middletown, 18 points and 15 in the Berks championship against Reading High, 19 points and 11 in the Berks semifinals, and 17 points and 11 in the Berks quarterfinals.
That’s four double-doubles and averages of 18 points and 12.5 rebounds. That goes without mentioning Stewart’s defense: She is an elite, vocal rim protector and can step out to guard on the wing if needed.
The two times the Spartans have lost they’ve had trouble finding complementary scoring. Stewart accounted for a third of the points in the 40-33 loss to Middletown and more than half in the 48-45 loss to Bishop McDevitt.
In Wyomissing’s 24 wins Stewart has accounted for 29 percent of her team’s points.
Wyomissing head coach Aaron Anders made some minor defensive adjustments in the rematch against Middletown and a balanced offensive effort flipped a seven-point loss to a 13-point win.
“When you do something the same way all year, the other team is going to prep for that,” Anders said. “We switched some things up defensively to throw them off. The girls are so willing to work through stuff and come to practice and put in the hard work.”
Junior forward Annie McCaffrey has developed a nice complementary game to Stewart. She can be physical on the boards, make accurate passes to cutters and hit midrange jumpers.
McCaffrey has also stepped her game up in the playoffs; she is averaging 10.5 points in the playoffs after averaging 7.4 in the regular season. Berks Catholic’s main priority will be finding a way limit her and Stewart.
Sophomore guard Alexis Hardy (7.9 points per game) can get to the rim, push in transition, and shares ball handling duties with senior leader Maddie Campbell, whose calm presence is vital for the otherwise young Spartans.
Campbell was the fourth-leading scorer as a freshman on the last Wyomissing team to win a district game.
Anders gives significant minutes to only one other senior, Lexi Loeb, who has 52 3’s, second in Berks to Herb (61). Loeb has hit 118 3’s in her career.
Sophomore defensive ace Audrey Hurleman creates havoc at the top of Wyomissing’s 1-2-2 zone defense and junior Abby Zechman has turned into a key do-it-all bench piece.
Neither Berks Catholic nor Wyomissing has ever won a district championship. Central Catholic won its last title in 2008; Holy Name won its last title in 2001. Those schools merged to form Berks Catholic for the 2011-12 season.
Wyomissing last reached a district final in 2004; Berks Catholic made it last year.
The Spartans last made it to the PIAA tournament in 2018; the Saints qualified last season.
