The sixth-seeded Abington Heights girls basketball team pulled off a second upset in the District 2 Class 5A playoffs with a 50-38 win over second-seeded Crestwood in a semifinal game Feb. 25 at Wilkes University.

Abington Heights held a 12-10 advantage after the first quarter and increased its lead in the second quarter.

Point guard Hannah Kowalski, who scored a game-high 18 points and dished out six assists, put a punctuation mark on a strong first half for Abington Heights.

“We had a good first quarter,” Abington Heights head coach Deanna Klingman said. “We shared the ball and a lot of people got touches. Then, Hannah had a nice drive and basket to put us up by six points going into the locker room.”

Abington Heights stretched its lead to 14 after limiting Valley West to six points in the third quarter.

“We’ve been working extremely hard defensively over the last month,” Klingman said. “Each team has different strengths and we’ve really been focusing on what we need to do team-by-team. The girls are buying into the game plan and staying with it.”

Center Alessia Brunori scored 11 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, guard Nicole Getz added seven points, guard Grace Evans and forwards Erin Albright and Paris Koehler each scored four, and forward Olivia Baker scored two points.

“Our confidence is pretty high,” Klingman said. “The girls trust each other on the floor and everyone is contributing. One of our strengths is playing together as a team.”

Abington Heights (13-11) has won 11 of its last 15 games after starting the season 2-7.

“We were all trying to figure things out with the loss of Cassie (Ksaizek) to a knee injury and Nicole (Getz) returning from a knee injury,” Klingman said. “It took some time to shuffle the kids around and see where they fit. By the start of league play, everyone had more defined roles which really helped us. “

Julia Makowski led Crestwood (15-9) with 13 points and Andrea Shipton scored eight.

Abington Heights will play Wyoming Valley West (20-4), the top seed and Klingman’s alma mater, for the district championship at 6 p.m. March 4 at Mohegan Sun Arena.

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Staff report

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