Perkiomen Valley caps highly anticipated season with its first girls’ basketball state title

HERSHEY — Quinn Boettinger could not help herself. Perkiomen Valley’s 6-foot-3 senior center usually is stoic. This time, standing in the bowels of the Giant Center in Hershey on Friday night, her face hurt from crying so much.

They were tears of joy, mixed with the sadness of playing her last game with friends she’s known for a decade.

Boettinger, Bella Bacani, Grace Miley, Lena Stein, and Julia Smith have been playing together since third grade. When Wake Forest-bound Grace Galbavy transferred in as a sophomore from Upper Perkiomen, the Vikings became stronger.

The Vikings carried plenty of expectations this season, and, on Friday night, served a generational romp, beating District 7 champion Upper St. Clair by mercy rule, 58-27, to take the PIAA Class 6A girls’ basketball state title.

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It’s the first state basketball championship in Perkiomen Valley history and the first state title the school has won since the Vikings won the 1986-87 field hockey championship.

This year’s seniors had lost to the last three eventual state champions: Plymouth Whitemarsh in the state quarterfinal as freshmen, Archbishop Carroll in the second round as sophomores, and Cardinal O’Hara in the state quarterfinal as juniors.

Navy-bound Boettinger led all scorers with 16 points, followed by Galbavy’s 14, Stein’s 11, and Bacani’s seven. The Vikings never trailed against a team they beat, 63-57, on Dec. 14. The game was tied once, 2-2. Otherwise, it was all Perkiomen Valley.

The Vikings opened up a fairly close game with a 19-3 second-quarter run. Bacani’s corner three-pointer with 1 minute, 15 seconds left in the third quarter gave the Vikings a 50-19 lead and triggered the mercy rule (a running clock when there is a 30-point difference).

With 29 seconds remaining, Vikings’ coach John Russo put his starters — Boettinger, Galbavy, Bacani, Stein, and Miley — back on the court to dribble out the final seconds and enjoy a curtain call of applause by the family and friends who made the trip to Hershey.

“This is a relief. It’s been a while coming,” said Boettinger, who reports to the Naval Academy on June 26. “This is a player’s team, to an extent. Coach Russo trusts us to make the right decisions, and Bella Bacani makes great choices on the court. This was a dream for all of us since we were little. We didn’t feel any pressure this year. We always believed.

“But this is really hard for all of us, too. I’m happy for us. These are tears of joy, but it’s also the last time that we are all together. It’s what makes this so tough for me. I think I hugged and cried on everyone in the Giant Center.”

The Vikings finished 28-3. They end as the greatest team in Perkiomen Valley school history with the mission complete — as state champions.

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“We wanted to do this together, and we fumbled the ball along the way,” Russo said. “We had three shots at it. We lost to PW when they were very good, and we lost to a mentally strong O’Hara team last year. What we said entering this year was to learn from those games and fix those mistakes. I didn’t help this team that much. What I did as a coach was patch up our mistakes and find flaws in opposing teams.

“I did not coach them to this beatdown. This team prepared for this beatdown. This is the last time they are together since they first came together in third grade. When Grace arrived, she fit right in. They fell in love with basketball at a young age, and what is amazing is that they stayed together. I think they stayed together visualizing something like this.”

Galbavy said the focus was on the postseason.

“Lena [Stein] gave us a motivational speech at halftime, reminding us that we had 16 minutes left for the rest of our high school careers,” Galbavy said. “It hasn’t hit me yet. I’m not a crier. I’m sure we’re all going to start crying like Quinn. When those last seconds were ticking away, I was thinking, ‘This is the last time I’m going to be on the court with my sisters.’”

Neumann Goretti overcame a 10-point third-quarter deficit to claim its 10th PIAA state championship, beating District 3 champion Hershey, 85-71, behind a game-high 25 points from junior guard Stephon “Munchie” Ashley-Wright, 14 from Keon Long-Mtume, and 12 from DeShawn Yates.

Under coach Carl Arrigale, the Saints (19-11) won their first Class 5A state title, after winning eight PIAA Class 3A state championships from 2010 to 2018 and one Class 4A title in 2022.

The Saints finished the season on a seven-game winning streak, after getting ousted in the Philadelphia Catholic League quarterfinals by eventual PCL champion Father Judge and sitting with a 12-11 record.

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Against Hershey (25-4), Neumann Goretti trailed, 47-37, with 7:07 left in the third quarter after Roman Panko’s free throw. Then it went on a 14-2 run after Hershey’s leading scorer Cam Sweeney came out after he picked up his third foul with 6:52 to play in the quarter.

Neumann Goretti closed its 10-2 run when Hershey, which was making its first appearance in a state title game, got within 75-69 with 4:11 to play.

The Saints’ EJ Stanton Jr. and Alassan N’Diaye each chipped in with 11 points, and Kody Colson finished with 10. Long-Mtume is the Saints’ only senior starter, with the rest of the team comprised of juniors and sophomores.