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My Observations- Delone Catholic/Dallastown YAIAA Tournament


What do you get when you combine hot shooting, with lockdown defense and domination on the boards.

Delone found out Friday night in the first round of the YAIAA Tournament.  The Squirettes were dismantled by a Dallastown team that was clicking on all cylinders, 68-46.

I recently saw Delone play at Biglerville and the Squirettes could not have played a more complete game, offensively and defensively. Friday night they were on the other side of the coin.

Dallastown nailed five three's in the first half and easily handled what normally is a very difficult Delone 1-3-1 half court trap defense.

As coach Gerry Eckenrode said, "(Dallastown) played A++."

Dallastown did a great job of locking down Delone sensational sophomore, Maddie Comly for most of the game. They limited her to three points in the entire first half.

I was very impressed with Mary Gingrow. Over the past several games she has shown the ability to be very productive on the offensive end. She has an extremely soft touch and led the Squirettes with 14 points.

Last week Eckenrode commented on the fact that he didn't think Mary gave herself enough credit for being as talented as she is.  It appears over the last few games that she is developing that confidence.

Abbey Sponseller has show an increased aggressiveness on the offensive end of the court. She has shown that she can get it done both driving to the hoop and shooting it from the outside.

The threat of Gingrow and Sponseller are huge if Delone hopes to make a deep run in the playoffs. Defenses are starting to focus in on Comly and it is crucial that other players step up and get the job done.

One player that impresses me the most on the Delone team is Isabela Ugarte. She doesn't start and a lot of what she does won't show up on the stat sheet but when she is in there, all 5-foot-2 of her, she gives the Squirettes 100% of what she has. She plays with a high level of intensity and aggressiveness, sometimes causing her to pick up silly fouls, but she just plays fundamentally sound basketball. Ugarte is the type of player that every coach hopes to have on his team. She knows her role, doesn't force things and from my observations is the consummate teammate.

Delone now sits at 17-6 overall and awaits their District 3 opponent.

In the meantime, Eckenrode plans to work with his team and Comly to help her become more aggressive when teams set out to stop her and not settle for not being a factor offensively in a game.

Having seen Delone several times throughout the year, I feel like they were more effective when she ran the point and got the offense going. Lately, for decent stretches throughout the game, she has not been the main ball handler and I feel like they have struggled to get into a rhythm when that happens.  That is just my opinion and I am sure coach Eckenrode knows his team better than I do and thats why he makes the big bucks and I am left writing my observations.