Upper Dublin defeated District 3 runner-up Dallastown 54-33 to capture the PIAA 6A State Tournament title in Hershey Friday. Check back later today for additions to the game story, including an item about the team’s five seniors. Photos provided courtesy of Upper Dublin student photographers Sam Cowen, Jacob Reif and Landon Snyder (Additional photos will also be added)
PIAA 6A State Tournament final
#1-1 UPPER DUBLIN 54, #3-2 DALLASTOWN 33
It’s easy to set lofty expectations, it’s quite another to live up to them.
From the outset, the UD players were clear about their goals.
“The first day, I said, ‘Let’s set goals.’” UD coach Morgan Funsten said.
The players’ immediate answer surprised even their coach.
“They said, ‘Four chips – let’s win four championships,’” Funsten recalled. “’Oh, okay, all right, that’s bold right there,’ but they walked the walk. From day one, they embraced the target and the goals.”
And on Friday, at center court of Hershey’s Giant Center, the smiles, the tears during a giddy medal presentation told the story. A magical season had come to an end with the Cards’ no-doubt-about-it win over Dallastown, and as endings go, they really don’t get any better than this. Friday’s win in the state title game gave the Cards a clean sweep – it was their fourth and final chip.
Mission accomplished.
“It’s amazing,” UD senior Emilia Coleman said. “This is what we worked for all season. Going into the season, we knew we wanted this, and this is the end goal, and it’s amazing to be able to end our high school career with this.”
Coleman, who earned game MVP honors, scored the first basket of the game on a drive to the hole, and then it was Tamia Clark burying a three after a Bridget DiMartile steal. That was followed by Clark connecting on one of two at the foul line.
After Megan Ngo drew her first of two offensive charges, Coleman hit nothing but net on a 3-pointer, her second shot of UD’s possession after Clark pulled down an offensive rebound. Three minutes into the game, the Cards led 9-0, but that’s where they remained for close to five minutes while the Wildcats slowly crawled back into the game, pulling to within 9-6 before Lexi Ngo buried a 3-pointer with 20 seconds remaining in the quarter.
“It looked like we were about to win by 70, and then all of a sudden it was a game,” Funsten said. “Lexi’s 3 was arguably the biggest shot of the game.”
The Cards took a 12-8 lead into the second quarter. A 3-point play by Clark gave the Cards an 18-11 lead, but a pair of foul shots by Dallastown’s Natalie McLane made it a five-point game.
But not for long.
Coleman buried a 3 and then came up with a lightening quick steal of Dallastown’s inbounds, finding Clark for an easy bucket. In mere seconds, a five-point lead had grown to 10.
“The biggest sequence of the game was that Emilia 3, and the Emilia steal diving out of bounds, tossing it to T,” Funsten said. “It gave us some separation again.”
“I knew the girl was going to pass the ball,” Coleman said. “And 22 had her back turned to me, and I was like, ‘I might as well go for it.’ T was already there, and even if I threw a crazy pass, she would end of getting it.”
The highlight reel sequence not only gave the Cards their first double-digit lead, it gave them momentum.
“The play before that, I made a pass to Emilia, and she made a 3, and I was so hyped, and then she stole the ball, and it was even better,” Ngo said. “I thought it gave us a lot of momentum.”
The Cards took a 26-16 lead into halftime. The Wildcats would get no closer than seven the rest of the way.
By the numbers: Upper Dublin: Emilia Coleman (17 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals), Lexi Ngo (11 points), Tamia Clark (9 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists), Megan Ngo (4 points, 4 assists, 3
steals), Bridget DiMartile (6 points, 5 rebounds), Ella Morris (5 points, 5 rebounds)
Extra points: Tamia Clark was tasked with defending Dallastown’s outstanding freshman point guard Denyla Handy. “T did a great job on her,” Megan Ngo said. “And I thought we all did a great job of preparing for what they like to do and defending their players and taking away their strengths.”…UD held a 31-23 rebounding advantage and turned 16 Dallastown turnovers in 23 points. Dallastown, meanwhile, scored just four points off UD turnovers….UD – sparked by Coleman’s 3 3-pointers – connected on nine 3s for the game while Dallastown had just three. Six different UD players contributed 3s.
Upper Dublin 12-14-12-16 54
Dallasto. 8-8-9-8 33
Upper Dublin (54) – Bridget DiMartile 2 0-0 6; Tamia Clark 3 2-5 9; Megan Ngo 1 1-2 4; Emilia Coleman 6 2-2 17; Ella Morris 2 0-0 5; Lexi Ngo 1 8-8 11; TOTALS 16 13-17 54.
Dallastown (33) – Denyla Handy 41-2 10; Ava Jamison 5 3-5 14; Natalie McLane 2 2-2 7; Camryn Strouse 0 2-2 2; TOTALS 11 8-11 33.
3-point goals: UD – Emilia Coleman 3, Bridget DiMartile 2, Megan Ngo, Lexi Ngo, Ella Morris, Tamia Clark; D – Denyla Handy, Ava Jamison, Natalie McLane.
Ngo and Coleman: UD’s fire and ice: They were the perfect combination – Megan Ngo and Emilia Coleman, the fiery point guard and the stone cold shooter.
“I continue to say that Meg is the most driven player I’ve ever coached, and she was completely driven this offseason to become the best leader she could be, and the girls followed her,” Funsten said. “Emilia is the most fearless player I’ve ever coached. In the biggest moments, she had her best games.”
Both have had to deal with adversity along the way, and - until this year, the postseason has not been particularly kind to either of them. As a sophomore, Ngo tore her ACL in what became a briefer than expected postseason run for the Cards.
Ngo came back from the injury as a junior when she was reunited with Coleman, who transferred to Upper Dublin last year but was not given her release to participate in the postseason.
Both put any frustrations they may have had behind them and entered their final high school season with the kind of resolve and determination that opponents could not possibly match while leading the Cardinals to new heights.
They were a team united in its focus, and when it came time for the two senior captains to take the final snips of the net that awaited them to be cut down on their return to Upper Dublin Friday night – Ngo and Coleman climbed the ladder together, the point guard with fire in her eyes and the shooting guard with ice water in her veins. They were, by every standard, the perfect combination, and it was the perfect ending.
UD’s Fab Five: Seniors Megan Ngo, Emilia Coleman, Maeve Hogan, Molly O’Neil and Julia Scullen were Upper Dublin’s non-traditional version of the Fab Five. Two of them – captains Ngo and Coleman – spent the season living in the spotlight. The other three were reserves.
In a postseason that saw coach Morgan Funsten rely on rotation of six players, it would have been easy to understand if the reserves – especially the seniors - had tired of a season that began on Nov. 14, four long months ago, but that didn’t happen.
Maeve Hogan – a key member of UD’s successful girls’ lacrosse - is signed, sealed and all but delivered to Marquette University where she will play Division 1 lacrosse.
“Obviously, lacrosse is my number one sport, but I’ve been playing basketball for the longest time,” Hogan said. “It’s the first sport I ever played, and my dad was my first coach, so having my whole family there - basketball means so much to me.
“You’re on a team with the smallest number of girls, so you’re really close with everyone. This team is so special. Everyone always has each other’s back all the time, and to go as far as we can and win a state championship is just amazing.”
Listening to the players tell it – making the commitment to this team was easy.
“We spent every day together, six days a week and sometimes seven in the gym every day,” Hogan said. “It’s just a team unlike any other. Everyone just wants everyone to succeed and is always looking out for each other. Everyone is so supportive from the freshmen to seniors.”
To a player, none would have wanted to miss the experience and whether a star or a reserve, this was the experience of a lifetime for all of them.
“This team meant so much to me – we’re so close,” O’Neill said. “We do pasta parties, we spend so much time together. We’ve reached five months spending time with each other during the season, and we just built really close relationships with each other.”
They also share a special bond with their coach.
“I’ve been with this team for so long,” Scullen said. “I used to get pulled up in my seventh grade year, so excited to be with the team. I’ve known Funsten for so long. He is by far the best coach I’ve ever had. He brings us all together. He has passion for the game, and he cares so much and makes everyone else around him care even more. He’s just the best.
And what did it feel like to cap a dream season with gold medals.?
“It was crazy,” O’Neill said. “Emotions were really high. A lot of the seniors were crying. It was very emotional, but it was a good kind of emotional.”
“I couldn’t stop crying,” Scullen said. “It was bittersweet because it’s the end of our season, but we also accomplished the greatest thing, and we were so happy.”
“It’s surreal,” Hogan said. “There wasn’t a doubt in my mind we could make it this far with the team we have this year, but even in the moment, it’s still so crazy and so awesome.”
It was – for all of them – the journey of a lifetime.
“The culture that Meg and Emilia created this season was just completely contagious,” Funsten said. “Whether you’re talking about Molly O’Neill, who took an offer to be on the team that probably most people would not have taken.
“Or Julia Scullion, who just skipped the first couple days of her British exchange so she could be with the team and probably is playing a lot of money to go later. Or Maeve Hogan, who’s going to play Division 1 lacrosse at Marquette – she’s just the happiest girl in practice every day.
“Just the sacrifices these girls make for the team has just been so cool, and I always think it starts with your leadership. I think that Megan and Emilia were just so awesome in being selfless and showing how to be selfless, and I think everybody else followed.”
Lexi Ngo delivers: Just when opponents of Upper Dublin thought they could at long last exhale with the final game of Megan Ngo’s record-breaking career in the books, along comes another Ngo.
Lexi – the third of three siblings – delivered her biggest performance of the season on the biggest stage Friday.
Her only field goal of the game – a 3-pointer in the closing minutes of the first quarter - was one of the game’s biggest. It brought a welcome end to a scoring drought of close to five minutes and gave the Cards a 12-6 lead.
“The past few games, I haven’t been shooting great from 3, so seeing that one go in was really helpful,” Lexi said. “In warmups, I was shooting good, so I was like – ‘Hopefully, this will carry into the game.’”
Ngo was also money at the foul line, burying 8 of 8 and finishing with 11 points.
“When I was fouled, I was like, ‘I have to make these because last game I went 4-for-6 at the end, which is okay, but obviously, I wanted to go 6-for-6,” she said.
For the sophomore, playing with Megan has been something of a dream.
“It’s really great – she’s a role model for me and so is Amy,” Lexi said. “This has been one of our goals. My mom has been imagining the fire trucks for two years. That was a big goal for Megan, and it was one of our team goals to win four things .”
Four things – the SOL Liberty Division championship, the SOL Tournament title, the District 1 6A crown and the PIAA 6A State title. All four - in the books.
A hero’s welcome: It was the bus ride they probably didn’t want to end. That final road trip that ended at Upper Dublin High School – their charter bus escorted from the turnpike to the high school by Upper Dublin police and fire department, sirens blaring to announce their return.
“Oh my gosh, it was probably one of the most fun rides home I’ve had in all four years,” Ngo said. “We were dancing, singing, crying.”
The day began hours earlier with the trip to Hershey, and it was business as usual for the Cardinals.
“When we arrive at the school (for games), we always play ‘Turbulence,’ and we bang on the windows because that’s the song they played when they won the state championship in 2018,” Megan Ngo said. “So, we’ve been playing it every game when we get to the school, so today we played it before we went into the Giant Center. We bang on the windows and get hyped.”
It was certainly business as usual when they took the court at the Giant Center. The Cards led by four after one quarter, 10 at halftime and 13 heading into the fourth when they put the finishing touches on their 32nd and final win of a dream season.
“I was in shock literally,” Ngo said. “I think there were three times while the game was going on in the fourth quarter where I was just like – we really just did that. I was like, ‘Wow.’ It hasn’t even hit me yet. I haven’t even been able to be sad because I’m so excited.”
The Cards closed out the season with a 32-2 record. Four months of near perfection came to an end in the only way it possibly could have – with gold medals hanging around their necks.
“I said to the girls before the Carroll game – ‘Hey, we’re not guaranteed to win this, but the hard part of the season’s over because you guys have become such a team that the rest is going to take care of itself,’” Funsten said. “It sounds crazy going into playing Carroll that the hard part’s over, but it’s just been such a special ride, and I’m so grateful for the girls that they took us on this. It’s just really special.”
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