Council Rock North girls roll over Central in the first round of the PIAA Class 6A basketball tournament

Health and consistency have been the Council Rock North girls’ basketball team’s best friends and biggest enemies throughout the postseason.

In the District 1 Class 6A second-round game, the Indians used a big halftime advantage to defeat Pennridge. Then they scored just six points in the third quarter of their quarterfinal loss to Neshaminy.

In the playbacks, they had scored just seven points by halftime in a loss to Souderton and were without senior center Dana Bandurick before the game even started.

“When we were walking out of the locker room, she said to me, ‘Coach, if I raise my hand, that means I need to come out,' " Council Rock North coach Lou Palkovics said of Bandurick, who had two total knee reconstructive surgeries at the end of her sophomore and junior seasons. "She’s never said that to me before in her life. So I said ‘What’s the matter?’ and she told me her knee wasn’t feeling right.”

Even without Bandurick, the team turned things around in the seventh-place game and cruised past Downingtown East.

So, where would Council Rock North’s relationship with health and consistency stand on Friday against Central in the first round of the PIAA 6A girls’ state tournament?

They were pretty good friends.

Bandurick came in healthy and poured in a game-high 20 points, 17 of which came in the first half as the Indians blew past the Lancers, 84-15.

North’s seniors — Bandurick, Sydney Blum, Olivia Boyle and Camryn Polinsky — controlled the floor defensively, causing turnover after turnover that led to easy points in transition that made the game a rout.

Council Rock North (20-6) forced Central (8-15) into 15 turnovers in the first half that turned into 18 of its 47 points going into the break.

“I think we’ve always been a good defensive team and talk a lot," Boyle said. “We kind of just would get our hands in, get a steal and move up the court and throw it and just do the same thing [over again].”

That was on display when Central was held to zero points in the third quarter and didn’t score its first points of the second half until Alexis Lin hit a free throw with 3 minutes, 26 seconds remaining in the game.

Boyle did most of her work in the first half by finding teammates, and she headed into the halftime break with eight assists. She was part of a stretch in the third quarter that consisted of three Polinsky defensive rebounds followed by three long pass to the 5-foot-11 forward for six easy points. That made the score 63-11 with 2:49 left in the third quarter.

“I felt like I started off the game a little slow. But then at the end I kind of just got hyped up and started running and scoring," Boyle said about her nine-point third quarter.

Pair that with the team’s success from deep - the girls connected on 10 threes for the game - that included freshman Kristen Polinsky’s pull-up three to make it a 70-point game with just under three minutes left, and the result was never in doubt.

“On offense, we thought that moving the ball around a lot would work so they could lose track of us a little, and you can see that that worked pretty well for us,” Bandurick said.

Council Rock North will play Dallastown in the second round on Tuesday.

Central 6 5 0 4 - 15

Council Rock North 29 18 22 15 - 84

C: Alexis Lin 10, Jordan Carrier 4, Taylor Viz 1.

CRN: Camryn Polinsky 10, Anna Carione 4, Julia Murphy 2, Sydney Blum 12, Riley Hamilton 2, Kristen Polinsky 3, Olivia Boyle 13, Jillian Hopkins 2, Dana Bandurick 20, Emma Benson 12, Abby Jones 4.