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Their shield was shattered.
Their air of invincibility was smothered.
Their dreams of a District 2 championship were destroyed.
But those building blocks of self-esteem weren’t really what the Holy Redeemer Royals have been playing for during their dynamic 2014-15 season.
This is.
The PIAA playoffs start tonight.
And Holy Redeemer still plans to be playing for a girls basketball state championship by the end of them.
“The expectations haven’t changed,” said Redeemer coach Chris Parker, whose Royals (23-2) will try to recover from a stunning district championship defeat to Dunmore by opening the PIAA Class 2A playoffs against District 4 champion Central Columbia at 6 p.m. today at Shikellamy Fieldhouse. “And our goal remains the same.
“We’re a very good basketball team.”
But now, the Royals will have to use the state stage to prove it.
Pittston Area has no such problem.
The Patriots pulled off the school’s first-ever girls basketball District 2 title by humbling Hazleton Area 50-40 entering the PIAA Class 4A state playoffs, which also open tonight. The Patriots (22-3) will face North Penn (20-7), the No. 7 seed from District 1, at 7:30 p.m. today at Wyoming Area High School.
“We love the way we’ve been playing. And we battle,” Pittston Area coach Kathy Healey said of her Patriots, who have displayed an uncanny knack for playing spirited team basketball through the entire season. “It doesn’t matter who they’re playing, they’re going to battle every single game.”
The Patriots battled back from snapping a 12-game winning streak and losing the Wyoming Valley Conference Division I title to Hazleton Area by rolling off five straight wins to earn their first District 2 title. The winner of their battle with North Penn will play either Spring-Ford or Archbishop Carroll on Tuesday.
“We’ve been in the (district) semifinals before,” said Patriots guard Allie Barber, who scored her 1,000th career point during the district championship victory. “We never got to go to states.”
Redeemer did.
The Royals roared to the Class 3A state semifinals with basically the same team last season, before dropping to Class 2A for this season.
They stormed to the WVC Division III title and rolled off 21 consecutive victories, including a 13-0 regular season and a non-conference victory over Riverdale Baptist, a renowned national power from Maryland.
But their cruise to a planned district title stalled in rough waters after the Royals raced to a 13-point lead against Dunmore, only to watch the Bucks rebound for a 55-47 victory.
“I can tell you, for me as a coach, I don’t know if I’ll ever be over it,” Parker said. “The kids seemed to get over it a lot easier than the coach. It should be the other way around. But the great thing about this situation is you’re ultimately playing the season to earn a berth in the state playoffs. It’s like the NCAA Tournament, you’re playing the conference tournament to get in the NCAA Tournament.
“For us, that’s the big picture, us getting into the state tournament.”
To advance in it, the Royals will have to correct some flaws. A soft league schedule and a season filled with success didn’t do much to mold Redeemer’s will, and it remains to be seen how the Royals will react to future tough teams during the state tournament.
“We hadn’t lost in 21 games,” Parker said. “I thought we looked a little fatigued in the district title game. The girls looked tired — tired because they’re not used to being in the position of having to play a whole game. The other thing we never really faced this season is being down and rallying back. Once Dunmore took the lead on us, we fell apart. We didn’t know how to respond to that.”
Now, the once-mighty Royals are just hoping to find an answer in time for states. They’ll begin a long road of travel to other districts tonight in a game that will send the winner to face either Imhotep Charter or North Schuylkill on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, we lost the district championship game,” Parker continued. “Dunmore outplayed us and they beat us. They deserved to beat us. I don’t think we played well against Holy Cross (in the district semifinals) and we had a complete collapse in the second half against Dunmore. I’m a realist. With the exception of the (district quarterfinal) Lakeland game, we haven’t put together a full game since the last (regular season) game against Meyers. We just need to play well.”
A couple of well-played games and a bit of fortune in the brackets might go a long way in determining Redeemer’s playoff fate.
“A lot of luck plays a big part,” Parker said. “We’ll need that.”