Archbishop Carroll girls fall short in Class AAAA final

UNIVERSITY PARK - Jen Carney crumpled to the floor, her hands clasped over her face just outside the paint area in front of her bench.

The senior guard, who brought Archbishop Carroll High (23-8) inches from its first state championship at the 4A level, drove to the right side of the basket, absorbed some contact and overshot a short jumper with 3 seconds to play, thus ending the Patriots' season with a 47-46 loss to Mount Lebanon in the PIAA Class AAAA girls' basketball championship Friday night at the Bryce Jordan Center.

The shot by Carney, who was immediately consoled by teammates, would have been a nonfactor if not for her game-high 17 points.

"I wanted the call, but that wasn't the call that was going to decide the game," she said. "It was the whole game. We threw the ball away. We made some mistakes that could've been different."

Or in Archbishop Carroll's case, it was the absence of junior guard Meghan Creighton, who sat out most of the second half with foul trouble, forcing a patchwork operation from the point that was able to stay effective in the half court.

"She's a 48 percent three-point shooter," Carroll coach Chuck Creighton said of his daughter. "That's the impact of not having her on the floor."

Creighton picked up her fourth foul with 6 minutes, 53 seconds left in the third quarter and sat the rest of the quarter. The strategy in the fourth quarter was to substitute her in on offense and play as few defensive possessions as possible to avoid a fifth foul.

It didn't work. With 3:01 left in regulation, Creighton was called for an offensive foul and had to watch the final sequence from the bench, a few seats from her father.

"I would trade everything to be out there," Meghan Creighton said. "I had full confidence in my team. I thought that last play was going to work. We executed it exactly how we wanted to execute it, it just didn't fall."

Primary ball-handling duties went to sophomore Kristie Costantino, a 5-5 guard only 9 months removed from a torn ACL in her right knee.

She keyed a pass to a rolling Rachel Pearson, who missed all but nine regular-season games with a left ankle injury, with about 30 seconds left in regulation to bring the Patriots within one.

But as was the case the entire second half, Carroll could never grab a lead. Twice, Mount Lebanon saw nine-point, second-half leads shrink to one, but Carroll could not regain a lead it once held at 17-16 with 3:57 left in the second quarter.

Mount Lebanon led at halftime, 26-22, despite the absence of senior guard and Notre Dame recruit Madison Cable, who sat the final 9:16 of the half with two fouls.

Instead, it was junior guard Kelly Johnson who attacked the basket, leading all scorers with eight first-half points. She finished with a team-high 13 points.

Mount Lebanon (25-6), the second seed out of District 7, became the first girls team to win three straight AAAA titles since the PIAA expanded to four levels in 1984.

Also at University Park:

* Abbey Steudler scored 17 points and defensive-minded Villa Maria Academy, out of Erie and District 10, held Dunmore without a field goal for more than 12 minutes in a 62-39 win to take its third straight PIAA title.

Ashley Murray had 10 points for Dunmore (26-6), the first girls' team from the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area to play for a PIAA title since Bishop Hoban won in 1999.