Lady Blue Devils ready for national challenge
BELLWOOD — The Bellwood-Antis girls basketball team is off to a 3-0 start in defense of their PIAA Class 2A state championship, but their competition is about to jump a few levels.
The Lady Blue Devils will travel to Myrtle Beach, S.C. later this week to play in the exclusive Crescom Bank Holiday Invitational which includes 16 of the best high school girls teams across the nation from all classifications.
“The guy who runs the tournament called me last spring and said he saw on MaxPreps that we’d won a state title and told me about their tournament,” Bellwood-Antis coach Jim Swaney said. “There’s 16 teams in each, and it’s national tournament. Christ the King (of New York) won it last year, and Neumann Goretti from Philadelphia was in it. He saw we had a lot of underclassmen and wanted to see if we were interested in coming down.”
Bellwood-Antis returns four starters including star junior Alli Campbell.
“We have been looking forward to this ever since we heard the news that we had the opportunity to go down there and play in the tournament,” Campbell said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun against some good competition.”
Senior Riley D’Angelo and juniors Sakeria Haralson and Emilie Leidig also are back.
“I know at states we spent a little time together, and it helped us get closer,” D’Angelo said. “The closer we are, the better we play together. Hopefully this will work the same and we’ll be better when we come home.”
The Lady Blue Devils will open with a game against Lovejoy, a large school from Georgia, at 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday.
“We play the 6A champions from Georgia in our first game, and I think their point guard is a Division I player,” D’Angelo said. “So it’s going to be good competition that will hopefully get us ready for later this year.”
The top eight teams will place. Bellwood-Antis is guaranteed three games and may play a fourth on Saturday if they win enough games.
“If we go down there and play hard and play well, that’s just a feather in our cap,” Swaney said. “There’s no negative that we can take out of this. I don’t think we will, but in the worst-case scenario, if we go down there and go 0-3, so what? That doesn’t take away anything from what we want to do as far as league championships, district championships and trying to compete for a state title.”
Bellwood-Antis struggled to pull away from Tyrone in its opener before winning comfortably over Everett and Williamsburg.
“This is going to be a great bonding trip,” Campbell said. “Just spending a lot of time with each other, sleeping over with them, eating with them and playing with them for around five days is going to be really good for us.”
The Lady Blue Devils are already getting more contributions from Jaydyn Shuke, Macy Decker and Liv Musselman this season and expect to compete for another state championship. Just being asked to play in the tournament was an honor for Swaney.
“They try to get the best talent in the country that they can get,” Swaney said. “They said we’re looking for the best talent in the country, and you have one of those teams.”
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