Cardinal O’Hara girls ready for comeback year after Catholic League and state semifinal losses

Three points. Three stinkin’ points. That’s all that kept Cardinal O’Hara girls’ basketball from playing in two championship games last year.

A Deja Evans buzzer-beating layup in the Catholic League semifinals sent Archbishop Wood to the Palestra. A pair of foul shots from Taylor Wilson in the PIAA Class 6A semifinal lifted Archbishop Carroll to the championship game.

“After winning [both] my freshman year, it was a ton of fun,” said junior wing Molly Rullo. “And then coming out and losing in the semifinals and not even getting the chance to get there was what made us angrier coming into this year. I think a lot of us are angry and want it back.”

The Lions won back-to-back Catholic League titles in 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. O’Hara has its eyes on a PCL and state titles this year.

Rullo’s one of the four returning starters on the squad that finished 23-6 (9-2 PCL) last season. The other three seniors in the lineup include Joanie Quinn, who’s committed to La Salle, Carly Coleman, and Greta Miller. Rullo’s younger sister, Megan Rullo, a sophomore point guard, should slide into the fifth spot after playing a big role off the bench as a freshman.

That group alone will have the Lions in one of the frontrunner spots for the PCL title.

“We’ll be a little bit advanced,” said Lions’ sixth-year head coach Chrissie Doogan, “[But] we’re going to be mixing in a lot of freshmen and kids that maybe didn’t have a bigger role last year.

“We always start out with the same mentality; get better every day and be ready in March compared to December. We’re going to get there — good group of seniors, who have been through it all. They have two state championships under their belt and they want to get back to Hershey.”

Quinn and Molly Rullo are returning first team all-Catholic League honorees. The two are expected to handle the scoring load for the Lions. Though Quinn, a 5-8 shooting guard, was an unknown quantity this time last year.

“A year ago, I was still trying to prove myself to everybody,” Quinn said. “I’m still trying to do that now, but after coming off a pretty good junior year, I think my confidence level is a little higher than it was last year.”

The younger Rullo sister had a strong circuit with the Comets’ 15U squad this offseason. She showed her abilities in scoring, ball-handling, and defending.

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“She had a great summer, she’s really ready to step up,” Doogan said. “It’ll be fun for her to have a little more of a green light and freedom out there that she might not have had as a freshman.”

The Lions have plenty of role players ready to step up and chip in a few buckets or more.

Sophomores Natalie DiBlasi and Michelle Eburuoh got valuable experience as freshmen and will be in the mix, as will junior guard Bridgid MacGillivray, who’s the daughter of La Salle head coach Mountain MacGillivray, and senior Sophia Stellabotte, a third-year varsity player.

“We have a lot of returners, which is great,” Rullo said. “A lot of people who impacted us every day last year are looking for playing time this year. We definitely have a ton of depth to come in and help us.”

Doogan has stressed that she doesn’t want to hold last year’s result over this year’s team too much, and more so focus on steady improvement before the season gets underway.

“They know what happened last year and they know what they have to do,” she said, but also admitted, “I might remind them during rebounding drills that if we got one more rebound we would have played at the Palestra last year.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.