Basketball

Lady Marauders will play in 14th title game today

By Michael Boytim

mboytim@altoonamirror.com

Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic won its first PIAA girls basketball championship 40 years ago in 1984.

Including that season, today's game against Mountain View for the Class 1A championship at Hershey's Giant Center at noon will be the 14th time the Lady Marauders have competed for a state championship.

That means a remarkable 35 percent of BG's last 40 seasons have ended by playing for the PIAA championship.

"With all the championships, you want to strive to do that every year," Bishop Guilfoyle coach Kristi Kaack said. "These are kids that are going out on their own to be as good as they are. Sometimes you can look at it and say they have talent, but there's a lot of hard work that is put in behind the scenes with these kids, and that's because they are proud of this program. They want to continue the success that has been here for so long."

One of Bishop Guilfoyle's two starting freshmen, Maurie Querry, has plenty of memories of some of those top-tier BG teams from both her own perspective and from stories from her grandfather, former Lady Marauders coach Mark Moschella, who is being inducted into the Blair County Hall of Fame this April.

"We're really excited for this opportunity," Querry said. "I grew up around those great teams. I always looked up to them. It's crazy to think that I am them now. I can remember looking up at them as a young kid, and it's really motivating to know that I am in their shoes now, and I still have three years after this."

Querry and Morgan Ruggery are starting as freshmen, and fellow freshman Anberlyn Petrecca is the first player off the bench. Sophomores Gia Adams, Alana Lightner and Stella Yeskey also start for the Lady Marauders, who have only one junior (Riley Gofus) and one senior (Sarah Geishauser, who has been injured all season).

But despite their youth, the players appreciate the tradition of putting on the purple and gold uniforms.

"First and foremost, there's so much pride in this program," Kaack said. "When these kids come up through, they are very excited to be a Lady Marauder one day. Our junior high coaches do a great job of tying that together with those junior high kids, having them watch the high school kids and getting them prepared for what they are going to step into."

With that comes a sense of maturity uncommon for players in their first and second varsity seasons.

"It's going to be a big environment, but I think we're ready for it," Adams said. "We have put in hard work since the summer, and I think we're just going to have fun with it."

Bishop Guilfoyle's offense has been hit and miss this season, but its defense has remained constant and will be what the Lady Marauders lean on against Mountain View.

"Our defense is going to be a big part of it," Ruggery said. "Against Williamsburg, one of the biggest parts of us winning the game was our defense. We'll have to do the same thing in the state final."

Bishop Guilfoyle is playing for a state title after losing in the District 6 championship last year and falling in the second round of the state playoffs. Kaack won her first state title at BG in 2021 a year after BG's season ended in the PIAA quarterfinals when the PIAA canceled the rest of the state tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BG also won state titles in 1984 and 1991 in 2A and in 1993, 2007, 2009 and 2010. The Lady Marauders lost in the championship game in 1987, 1995 and 2004 in 2A and in 1994, 1999 and 2011 in 1A.

"We talk a lot about standards," Kaack said. "The standard at BG is that every year you want to be able to compete for a state championship. Obviously, that's a hard goal to be able to achieve every single year, but this group that we have now, it was known from the beginning that this is what they were going after. At the start of the year, we saw a lot of growth. We weren't necessarily there, but watching these kids after a few months, we knew we were contenders when we started in the state playoffs. That's something they had to work toward and build toward."

The Lady Marauders are hoping to play in front of a similar crowd they saw at the Altoona Area High School Fieldhouse in Tuesday's PIAA semifinal win over Williamsburg.

"(The semifinal game) was incredible," Kaack said. "To see the amount of fans that came out for both sides. The student sections were awesome on both sides. That type of environment was really exciting for the kids. We're hoping to have a good showing at Hershey. I expect we will travel well, and the fans in the community were wonderful after our win in the semifinals. We're hoping we can bring them another gold medal home."