On Saturday afternoon, Saint Joesph’s Catholic Academy, led by its do-it-all senior point guard Naomi Crispin, checked off all of those boxes and ended Guilfoyle’s dreams of three-peating.

Crispin, the daughter of former Penn State standout and National Basketball Association veteran Joe Crispin, put the Saint Joseph’s team on her back Saturday, scoring a game-high 37 points as Saint Joe’s notched a 71-58 win over BG in a PIAA Class 1A quarterfinal-round game at the Claysburg-Kimmel High School gymnasium.

The outcome wrapped up a 26-3 season for BG that included District 6 and Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference championships. Saint Joseph’s (27-3) advances to Tuesday night’s semifinal round and a 7:30 p.m. matchup with Williamsburg at the Altoona Area High School Fieldhouse. Tuesday’s winner will advance to this Friday afternoon’s 1 p.m. Class 1A state championship game. Williamsburg moved on to the semifinal round with a 53-48 quarterfinal-round win over Bishop Carroll Saturday in a game that was played at the Altoona Fieldhouse.

“There are a lot of tears in our locker room right now,” BG coach Kristi Kaack said following Saturday’s game. “I know it hurts, and I know it stings, but what these girls have done in this program over the last three or four years has been fun to watch.”

Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Bishop Guilfoyle's Morgan Ruggery puts up a shot between St. Joseph's Layla Fetzer (left) Lauren Himes.

After scoring 14 straight points to wipe out an early 5-0 deficit and build a 14-5 lead, BG found itself enduring an 11-point Saint Joe’s rally that gave the Lady Wolfpack a 16-15 lead entering the second quarter.

The game turned decidedly in favor of Saint Joe’s in the second quarter, which started with the Lady Wolfpack putting together a 20-4 run to take a commanding 36-19 advantage.

Crispin, a 5-foot-6 dynamo, scored 10 second-quarter points, including a pair of 3-pointers, and junior guard Lauren Himes — who started her high school career in the Bishop Guilfoyle program — connected on a pair of 3-pointers, to highlight the Saint Joseph’s surge.

“We were all in today,” Naomi Crispin said. “Nobody expected us to win, and it’s easier to play as an underdog. We played a full game today, and we played great team defense. Hopefully, we can go on and get two more wins now.”

Once BG fell considerably behind, the Lady Marauders were faced with the difficult task of trying to play catch-up against an excellent opponent for the remainder of the game.

“We got out to a lead in the first quarter, then we kind of dug ourselves a hole,” said BG junior guard Morgan Ruggery, whose 21 points led the Lady Marauders. “We had to try to kind of chip away, and in the end, that was too much.”

Sophomore Layona Williams scored 12 points for BG, but the Lady Marauders shot just 30.3 percent from the floor, making only 17 of 56 attempts.

Saint Joseph’s coach Bethany Irwin knew that her team would have to be at the top of its game to have a chance to unseat BG as the state champions.

“That’s a heck of a team over there that we beat today,” Irwin said of the Lady Marauders. “We knew that everybody on our team would have to have their best game today. We did a great job defensively in the first half, but when you’re playing the two-time defending state champions, you know that they’re going to come back against you.”

The closest that BG could get in the second half was to within nine points, 56-47, in the fourth quarter, but Naomi Crispin’s nine fourth-quarter points helped Saint Joseph’s to pull away again.

“It just felt like when we needed to hit the big shot, we would miss it, or when they needed to hit a shot, they would make it,” Kaack said. “It’s a credit to them that they were able to step up, especially when we started to make our run.”

BG will return a solid nucleus next season led by seniors-to-be Ruggery, Anberlyn Petrecca and Maurie Querry, who Kaack commended for providing leadership and moral support from the bench this winter after Querry had sustained a season-ending injury prior to the start of the campaign. Williams will also return as a junior for BG next season.

Kaack extended kudos to the three seniors on her team – guards Gia Adams and Payton Ronan, along with strong forward Stella Yeskey – for their leadership and commitment to the program.

“I want to thank our seniors for what they brought to this team and to this program every single day,” Kaack said.

SAINT JOSEPH’ S ACADEMY (71): Crispin 13 9-12 37, Luckovich 3 0-0 7, Cunningham 3 2-5 8, Yartz 4 1-1 9, Himes 3 0-2 9, Fetzer 0 1-2 1, Chappell 0 0-0 0. Totals – 26 13-21 71.

BISHOP GUILFOYLE ACADEMY (58): Ruggery 6 7-9 21, Williams 2 7-12 12, Adams 3 0-0 9, Petrecca 2 0-0 4, Haigh 2 3-4 8, Yeskey 1 0-1 2, Homan 1 0-0 2. Totals -17 17-26 58.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Saint Joseph’s Academy 16 23 17 15 — 71

Bishop Guilfoyle 15 9 20 1 4– 58

3-point goals: Saint Joseph’s Academy 6 (Himes 3, Crispin 2, Luckovich); Bishop Guilfoyle 7 (Adams 3, Ruggery 2, Williams, Haigh).

Records: Saint Joseph’s Academy (27-3); Bishop Guilfoyle (26-3).

Officials: Ed Danel, Pete Hall, Jesse Topper