How Muhlenberg and Exeter put girls basketball on the map
By Tony Zonca — MikeDragoSports.com senior contributor
It was a February night in 1978 and the basketball crowd had decided to show up early for the high school double-header at Reading High.
The Geigle, especially back then, was a magnificent roundball facility. The parking? Not so much.
Get there late and you were scurrying up from Northeast Junior High, or you were testing your parallel parking skills on the narrow road near the tennis courts. If the Reading cops decided to give out parking tickets on game nights they could have paid for the police pension fund in one season.
Conrad Weiser and Kutztown were meeting for the Berks County boys championship in the second game. The Exeter and Muhlenberg girls — two fierce rivals — were the opening act in what amounted to a county semifinal.
Ugh! A girls game! some of the early arrivals likely said about the opener. Some occupied themselves with deli sandwiches for their version of the early-bird special. Others buried their head in that day’s newspaper. Diligent youngsters got a start on their homework.
And then the game began.
After Muhlenberg’s 58-56 victory I wrote: “It was basketball at its zenith. In terms of excitement, execution and coaching prowess this game was superb from start to pulsating finish.”
Motivated by the big early crowd and the goal of county gold the girls put on a show. Up till then you could put the crowd for most girls games into a phone booth. Most fans showed up as empty seats. This was social distancing before there was such a thing.
Not this night. This game in this setting surely changed how local fans regarded the girls game. These just weren’t girls playing basketball; these were terrific athletes playing the game.
First, the coaches were two of the best in the state — Lee Braun of Muhlenberg and Jean Frey on the other side.
Second, each team was gifted with outstanding players — Kathy Folk, Anita Unger, Lyn Adams and Linda Jones for the Muhls, Dee Dee Kantner, Steph Sell and Beckie Yoder for the opposition.
The Muhls (23-3) got off to an early start by going inside to the 6-foot Unger and led 15-7 after a quarter. Yoder (15 points), slowed in practice by the flu, came off the bench in the second quarter and sparked the Eagles (21-4). She packaged nine points, three rebounds and two assists to go along with Kantner’s eight points — 17 total — and the Eagles led 30-29 at the half.
Frey had come out in a box-and-one on the 5-4 Folk, who had torched the Eagles for 21 in their previous meeting.
“Whatever it was it didn’t work,” Frey says today.
Patient throughout, Folk still went for 16.
It was tied at 42 going into the fourth.
Then, with Adams (13 points) firing rainbow jumpers the Muhls opened a 58-50 lead with 2:06 to go. Braun, picking his spots, had gone to fullcourt pressure, which rattled the Eagles.
“I have no idea why we had trouble with the man-to-man pressure,” Frey said later.
Down eight, the Eagles made one last push. Sell (16) made her fourth corner jumper in the quarter; Kantner was good in the lane at 0:27 and swished another jumper from the left wing at 0:16.
The lead was down to a bucket. By now the huge crowd was glued to their seats. But the Eagles had run out of time.
“It was a great game for girls basketball,” Braun said afterward. “We took it out of the closet tonight. It was two teams with nerves of steel playing before a full house. I’m glad so many people were here to see it; it showed them something.”
Frey agreed. “That game should do a lot for girls basketball,” she said.
Braun was effusive in his praise for Frey, a state Hall of Famer who would coach 18 seasons at Exeter.
“I can’t express enough my admiration for Jean,” he said. “She’s a great coach and I just don’t mean a girls coach.”
Muhlenberg shot 12-for-19 from the floor in the second half, 26-for-46 (57 percent) for the game.
“We gave them shooting practice,” Frey complained.
When it was over Folk didn’t appreciate the significance of the game. She was totally spent. She also was concerned the Muhls would have nothing left for Schuylkill Valley in the county championship.
No worries; the Muhls prevailed 46-42.
“I don’t remember much about the crowd or the environment,” she says today. “I just know we were fired up to beat Exeter. It was a total team win; everyone played her role. We started five seniors so we had a lot of experience and a good balance of size and quickness. We liked playing together; we had each other’s backs.
“I didn’t know at the time that that game would be a game-changer for girls basketball (in the county). Our games with Exeter were always dog fights. And Jean Frey was a superb coach.”
Folk played at Duquesne, where she was a four-year starter. Before that she was voted first-team all-county and also was the recipient of the second Duke DeLuca scholar-athlete award.
Soon after leaving Duquesne she found her way into the sports department of the Reading Eagle. Today she is the paper’s Features Editor.
Kantner went to Pitt on a field hockey scholarship and became one of the most respected big-time basketball officials in the country. She also officiated four seasons in the NBA, a significant historic breakthrough. She makes her home in North Carolina and, at 62, is still blowing a strong whistle in the college game.
All who were a part of that ground-breaking 1978 game should look back on it with pride.
Whether they know it or not they were part of something special.
