Mount St. Joseph cruises into district final

Mount St. Joseph more than lived up to its No. 2 seeding in the district girls' basketball playoffs Wednesday night, riding a big 48-27 semifinal win over Downingtown East into its first District 1 Class AAAA championship game.

In what was expected to be Mount St. Joseph's stiffest playoff test after moving up to Class AAAA this season, the Magic made it look easy behind the shooting of Mary Jo Horgan and Steph Smith. Smith led all scorers with 17 points, and Horgan added 14.

The win puts Mount St. Joseph in the district championship game at 7 p.m. Saturday at Villanova against the winner of Wednesday night's other semifinal at Norristown High, Council Rock North or Lower Merion.

In securing their berth in Saturday's championship game, the Magic also presented coach John Miller with the 600th win of his coaching career, which has included stops at Archbishop Ryan (boys), Monsignor Bonner (boys), and La Salle University (women).

"I told the girls before the season started that this is the best man-to-man defensive team I've ever coached," Miller said. "I mean that. We played man-to-man the entire night, and to beat Downingtown East, the most successful girls' high school program in this area over the last two decades, for my 600th win is truly an honor. Bob Schnure is an unbelievably good coach."

"We were excited for Coach," Horgan said of Miller, but indicated the Magic didn't need any special motivation against East, not with the berth in the district championship game on the line. "One of our goals after moving up [to Class AAAA] was to make it to the finals."

Mount St. Joseph led from the start against Downingtown East (22-6), but put away its 24th win in 27 games with a 15-6 run to start the third quarter. The Magic also outscored East, 13-5, over the last 31/2 minutes of the game.

"I thought we had them after that run to start the second half," said Horgan, who has been doing some heavy scoring in the Magic's four playoff games to date.

The Lehigh-bound senior scored 20 points in the Magic's previous outing, a 50-30 win over Upper Dublin in the quarterfinals. The Mount has won its last four games by an average of 26 points.

"We were able to go inside with Steph and outside with the rest of the team," Horgan said of the win over East. "We look forward to playing whoever we get in the finals. We don't have a preference who we play. I think we've shown that we can play with the AAAA teams."

"The Mount's a very good team," Schnure said. "We thought we played some pretty good defense in the beginning, but we couldn't put the ball in the basket."

The Cougars scored only four points in the opening quarter.

The Magic made their new PIAA classification by a total of three girls in grades nine through 11, according to Miller.

Downingtown East   4 5 8 10 – 27

Mount St. Joseph   11 5 15 17 – 48

DE: Kelly Devlin 4, Melissa Hummel 2, Noelle Alicea 3, Kaitlin Dougherty 13, Michella Kolonauski 5.

MSJ: Alex Louin 2, Meg McGabe 2, Bridget Higgins 6, Cailin Schmeer 4, Maddie Kohle 3, Mary Jo Horgan 14, Steph Smith 17.