Philadelphia Catholic League girls basketball has a lot of things: great coaches, players, and personalities as well as historic teams and nationally regarded ones. One thing it doesn’t have is parity.
That was put on prime display Thursday night in Northeast Philadelphia as the Archbishop Carroll girls basketball team took down Archbishop Ryan 65-25 in blowout fashion.
“It’s hard, you know,” said head coach Renie Shields. “I love the Catholic League and I want it to stay competitive, though every year you have to assess yourself and see where you fit, either in the top or lower portion of the league.”
The Catholic League is now far different from the days of its infancy. In those times, when women’s basketball itself was still foreign to many, the Catholic League was always a toss up for the girls, with new teams fighting for a chance at the title yearly.
It wasn’t until the days of the great Tom Longeran, who won three-straight PCL titles in the 1990s with now-closed Bishop McDevitt High School, and the legend Linus McGinty, who helped guide Cardinal O’Hara to 12 PCL titles between 1995 and 2017, that parity began to wane. Since 2001, only five clubs have taken home the coveted hubcap from the Palestra. Among six clubs — O’Hara, Carroll, Archbishop Wood, Neumann-Goretti, Lansdale Catholic, and West Catholic — five are seen as legit contenders for the title once again in 2025. Ryan, Bonner-Prendie, Little Flower, and St. Hubert’s are not seen as in the running.
The situation puts expected contenders such as Carroll in a position where they go out to play a team like Ryan one night and then head out the next to play one of the league’s best, like Lansdale Catholic or Archbishop Wood — a team that includes D1 recruits like Emily Knouse and nationally ranked sophomore Ryan Carter, who is an ESPN Top 30 recruit with offers from some of the nation’s top schools.
“It’s definitely hard,” said senior guard Olivia Nardi. “It’s always like, don’t play down to your competition, but I think today we played well. It’s really about staying consistent, not taking anyone lightly and playing every team with the same attitude.”
That’s exactly what Carroll has done so far throughout their Catholic League slate. They’ve played their game against lesser opponents and dealt with them as such, handling the likes of West Catholic, Bonner-Prendie, and now Ryan all by 17 or more points. That leaves them to look ahead to bigger games with top opponents like Wood, O’Hara, Lansdale, and Neumann still on top of their game.
That never-let-up mentality that Shields has instilled in this team is what has taken them to three Catholic League titles since she took over and also what allowed the Patriots get out to such a fast start against the Ragdolls.
Shields’ club opened the game with a lay in from junior guard Alexis Eberz off the opening tip just three seconds into the game and Carroll never looked back. After the first period the Lady Pats led 25-10. They then held Ryan to just four points in the second quarter to head into halftime with a 37-14 lead.
That defensive effort continued as Carroll’s reverses held Ryan scoreless throughout the entire third period of play. The Lady Pats went on a 21-0 run to make it a 58-14 advantage through three.
“We talked at halftime how we really wanted to defend,” said Shields. “We really haven’t been doing it very well and really we just want to force teams to take challenging shots. We don’t even want to take the ball away; we just wanna make sure the shots that the other team is taking are shots they aren’t comfortable with.”
While the Pats didn’t necessarily lock down on defense in the fourth period, they continued to knock down good shots and eventually control possession for a majority of the final minutes, coming away with the victory.
With the win, Carroll advances to 3-0 on the PCL season and will get ready to face off with Friends Central at Ursinus College this Sunday for a 12 p.m. tipoff.
