By Ben Destefan

 

They face a unique dynamic of pressing the reset button while trying to maintain its recent momentum.

 

Coming off a captivating run to the District 3 title, the Greencastle-Antrim girls’ basketball team will continue its remarkable postseason in the first round of the PIAA tournament Saturday afternoon, making the program’s debut appearance at the state level.

 

Slightly benefiting from site location, the Blue Devils (24-3) have been paired against Philadelphia-based Audenried Charter — the fourth seed from District 12 — for a 2:30 tip at Dallastown High School.Facing single-elimination throughout the Class AAA bracket, there’s really no need to change what isn’t broken.

 

“At this stage of the game, there’s not a lot of new things to go over or implement,” G-A head coach Mike Rhine said. “We watched the film of our district games and saw what worked well and what didn’t. We’ll just formulate a game plan from there, obviously geared toward our strengths."

 

Common to states is the lack of familiarity between opponents, exemplified by two schools separated by roughly three hours.

 

Audenried boasts a record of 17-8, having lost its last two games, thus earning a fourth-place finish in District 12.Similar to G-A, the Lady Rockets like to spread the scoring, essentially having three girls averaging double figures, paced by senior Romeira Tucker’s 14.8 points per game. Jaquay Williams serves as Audenried’s second leading scoring (11.6 PPG) while Tatyana Sao is averaging 9.8 per contest.

 

Clearly, as expected from here on out, the Rockets pose plenty of challenges.“There are really a lot of unknowns,” Rhine said. “From the little that we have been able to see, they like to mix it up and get out and run. They can drop into a zone on defense which should gives our guards some good looks that they’ll need to knock down.”

 

For the Blue Devils, it likely comes down to who’s going to shine the brightest.

 

Undoubtedly, Jenay Faulkner had to demand attention on any film Audenried viewed, with the sophomore averaging 17.3 PPG. In the biggest game of her young career, Faulkner netted a game-high 20 points against Conrad Weiser in the District 3 championship, asserting her talents from the opening whistle.

 

Junior point guard Hannah Crist is coming off a tremendous four-game stretch, averaging 14.8 points during the Blue Devils’ run to the Class AAA title, inflating her season average to 11.8 PPG.

 

Serving as G-A’s post presence, Katie Gelsinger (9.0 PPG) has been a beast inside while fellow senior captain Jane Herman (8.2 PPG) acts as a dangerous catch-and-shoot sniper from beyond the arc.Called upon to provide strong defense and key shots in clutch moments,

 

Meghan Hirneisen rounds out the starting five, a unit that truly believes it can win every they take the floor.

 

“We’re scoring a lot of points and moving the ball around nicely,” Rhine said. “We just need to control the defensive boards and play our style of basketball. I we do those things, I like our chances.”

 

The winner of Saturday’s game will face either Pope John Paul II or Berks Catholic in Wednesday’s second round at a site and time to be determined.