Keswick Christian girls get revenge, advance to regional finals

Ava Graham scores 20 as the Crusaders beat St. John Neumann in the 2A regionals

NAPLES, FLORIDA – The Keswick Christian girls basketball team had a little extra motivation in Tuesday's regional semifinals.The Crusaders came down from St. Petersburg to play at St. John Neumann in Naples, the same place where Keswick lost in last year's regional championship game.

This time the Crusaders headed home with the victory. Keswick used big runs in the second and fourth quarters to put away Neumann, 60-44, in the Class 2A-Region 3 semifinals.

"It gave us revenge," Keswick's Ava Graham said. "It was like deja vu, except we won this time."

Graham was one of the big reasons the Crusaders got a different result. A junior who leads the team in scoring at 16.2 points per game, Graham scored 20 points including nine in the fourth quarter.

Hall of Fame coach Karrmayne King, in her 34th season, led Keswick Christian to another big win Tuesday night / Photo by Adam Fisher

Keswick took a 16-point lead in the second quarter thanks to a 19-4 run in which the Celtics didn't score a field goal for more than six minutes. However, Neumann scored the final seven points of the first half and trailed 26-17 at the break.

The Crusaders' lead hovered around 10 points in the third quarter, but Neumann never went away. That is until Keswick's offense got hot in the final period.

Keswick led by eight entering the fourth quarter. With three minutes left the Crusaders were up 56-36, their largest lead of the game, thanks to a 9-0 run that included two big buckets from Graham.

"We started dropping our shots more," Graham said of the fourth quarter. "We got a lot of layups, we weren't forcing it as much and just trying to get open."

Keswick improved to 22-7 and grabbed victory No. 654 for FHSAA Hall of Fame coach Karrmayne King, now in her 34th season. The Crusaders, the No. 3 seed in the region, will have to take another long bus trip south on Friday when they head to No. 1 seed Evangelical Christian (22-4) in Fort Myers.

Hannah Jantomaso scored 15 points for Keswick, while Sophie Aust added 11 points.

The Crusaders' defense tried to slow down Neumann's 6-foot-1 junior Sydney Martin, who averages 18.5 points per game. It worked early as Martin was scoreless in the first quarter and had four points in the second.

Martin kept her team alive in the second half, though. She had 17 points after halftime to finish with a game-high 21 points.

"Our girls don't give up and they don't give in," Celtics coach John Wholihan said. "They didn't back down. They kept going at it. ... Our biggest problem was rebounding. We didn't box out and didn't get enough rebounds."

Neumann's season ended earlier than last year when the Celtics won a regional championship. However, Neumann (19-8) was without its leading scorer this postseason. Sophia McCartney, a 6-3 junior, was averaging 19.9 points and 16.9 rebounds before injuring her hand late in the season.

The Celtics had just two seniors this season -- Lily Wahlfeld, who scored nine points Tuesday, and Elise Flannery, who had eight points.