Girls Basketball onto States after Successful Season
After becoming county champions and district runner-ups, the Dallastown Girls Basketball team heads to the PIAA State Championships.
The Dallastown Girl’s Basketball team beat Spring Grove in the county championship on February 24, 2019 at York College.
At the beginning of the 2018-2019 girls basketball season, most would have counted the Dallastown team out.
Three months later, the Lady Wildcats were crowned YAIAA Champions.
“These girls have great team chemistry,” head coach Jay Rexroth said, “they believe in each other and they support each other, which makes them a really special group.”
The team had a strong balance of senior leadership and underclassmen talent including freshman point guard D’Shantae Edwards. Edwards wasn’t originally brought onto the team as a point guard.
However, after the transfer of junior Sabria Royal to York High, the team was without point guard, and Edwards stepped up to fill the empty role.
“There’s no line between seniors and freshmen. We are all just teammates,” senior Brielle Berry said.
Winning a county championship was never a vision of the team at the beginning of the season.
“We took everything one game at a time and ended up in a good position that resulted in winning counties,”Berry said.
The Lady Wildcats beat the Spring Grove Rockets 36-26 in the county championship at York College on Thursday, February 14.
Coach Rexroth always told the girls simply to believe.
The class of 2019 seniors made shirts with “2019 county champs” written on the back in elementary school. On February 14, 2019, the dream came true for Berry, Miller, Jamison, Moore, and Wise.
“He told us how important it is to believe in ourselves and our teammates, which helped a lot with team chemistry,” Berry said.
After winning counties, Dallastown earned the number 2 seed in the Class 6-A draw giving them a first-round bye.
The girls then won two more district round games to put them in the District 3, 6-A title game against Cumberland Valley on Friday, March 1 at Santander Arena in Reading. The district championship appearance was Dallastown’s first since 1978.
After a hard fought battle, the Lady Wildcats came up short, losing 33-27.
“Obviously Cumberland Valley is a very good team and we played right with them, so hopefully it builds our confidence going to the state tournament,” Rexroth said.
Despite the loss, Dallastown’s season isn’t over. As the number two seed from District 3, the Wildcats will play the number eight seed from District 1, Downingtown East, in the State tournament Friday, March 8, at West York High School at 7:30.
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