Holy Family

Kelly Killion scored 22 points as Holy Family (29-2) advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division II Northeast Regional with a 78-65 win over the College of Saint Rose (21-9) last night at Southern Connecticut State. The Tigers, seeded fifth, will face top-seeded Southern Connecticut at 7:30 tonight in the semifinals, a rematch of last season's semifinal that was won by SCSU, 58-41. Sophomore guard Melissa Brooks had 17 points for Holy Family, while senior center Megan Bauer had 12 points a game-high 15 rebounds.

The Holy Family women's basketball team lost a heartbreaker to top seed Bentley, 84-73, in the Division II East Regional championship game in Waltham, Mass., Monday night. The sixth-seeded Tigers led by as many as 12 points early in the game only to falter to a determined Falcons squad, which broke through in the second half. The Tigers closed the gap to two points late in the game and then went cold. Bentley (30-3) took a 76-71 lead with two minutes to play and controlled the action the rest of the way. Holy Family, trying to play catch-up, got caught in a cycle of missed shots and forced fouls.

Danny Williams has coached a lot of basketball. High school. CYO. College. But until this season, his 12th in coaching and fourth at Holy Family College, he had never seen so many injuries. In fact, he said, he had not seen so many in the 11 previous years combined. Four of his players have been severely affected. Sophomore John Volz, a backup forward, has a herniated disk and will miss the entire season. Power forward Jim Schultice, a sophomore who made second-team all-Keystone Conference last year, also has a herniated disk.

Some members of the East Torresdale Civic Association Monday night criticized the group's recent settlement of a lawsuit against Holy Family College. Among other things, the college made a $3,000 contribution to the civic group as part of the settlement, attorney Richelle Hittinger told members at their monthly meeting. The association had filed the lawsuit in July, seeking closure of a Frankford Avenue driveway to a parking lot at Frankford and Stevenson Lane that was expanded in December during construction of a new college building.

Thoughts of another long, unbeaten regular-season streak for Holy Family were quickly extinguished in the Tigers' first game last weekend, when the Division II powerhouse fell to host New Haven, 69-68, on a shot in the last 18 seconds in Connecticut. "We're not as good as we were last year, but we'll try to work each game to get back where we were," coach Mike McLaughlin said. Holy Family went 32-1, losing in the title game of the Division II regional tournament. Although Kelly Killion graduated, McLaughlin said the Tigers will rely on sophomore forward Catherine Carr, the reigning rookie of the year in the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.

Holy Family men's basketball players Mike Glitz and Jim Schultice recently received honors for their outstanding play. Glitz, a 6-foot, 6-inch junior center from Lincoln High School, was named Player of the Week from the NAIA District 19 for the period ending Jan. 12. He averaged 16.3 points and 13.3 rebounds a game in three contests that week. Glitz leads the Tigers, who won 10 of their first 15 games, in scoring with 18.1 points a game and in rebounding with 17.2 a game. Schultice, a 6-5 sophomore forward from North Catholic, was honored with the Sam Cozen Award as Small-College Player of the Month for January by Delaware Valley area coaches.

If Holy Family is to realize its dream of playing in the NAIA Softball World Series, it will have to take the long road. The Tigers, who split a pair of games yesterday in the Northeast Atlantic Regional, are faced with the daunting prospect of winning three games today to reach the next level. Holy Family, the tournament's host and No. 2 seed, opened the four-team, double-elimination competitionwith a crisp 2-0 victory over No. 3 Georgian Court of Lakewood, N.J. The Tigers then dropped a 6-5 decision to top-seeded St. Joseph's of Standish, Maine, in the second round.

Holy Family ran into the same brick wall. The Lady Tigers dropped a 74-61 decision in the NAIA Bi-District XII title game last Tuesday night to Wingate College, the same team that ended Holy Family's season the previous two years. Wingate (27-5) advanced to the NAIA National Championship Tournament Friday through next Tuesday in Jackson, Tenn., while Holy Family ended its season at 30-3. Holy Family coach Mike Soroka promised a different look from the last time his Lady Tigers appeared at Wingate's Cuddy Arena, a 95-41 loss in 1988.

A difficult one-run loss knocked Holy Family from the winner's bracket of the NAIA Northeast Atlantic Regional softball tournament on Wednesday. Another one ended the best season in Tigers history yesterday. Georgian Court rallied from a 2-0 first-inning deficit with a single run in the second inning and two more runs in the third to nip Holy Family, 3-2, in the four-team double-elimination tournament on the Tigers' home field. Holy Family, which had fallen into the losers' bracket after a 6-5 loss to St. Joseph's of Standish, Maine, one day earlier, finished the season at 36-9.

Holy Family overcame shaky shooting with dominating defense last night as it outlasted Dominican, 56-45, to capture the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference women's basketball championship. The victory, accomplished at the University of the Sciences, gave the Tigers the conference's automatic berth into the NAIA Division II national tournament, which begins March 8 in Sioux City, Iowa. Holy Family (29-3), the fourth-ranked NAIA Division II team, will be making its fifth straight appearance in the nationals.

IF THEY GET WIND of his story, Hollywood producers will be rooting for Tahjere McCall to make the NBA. This kid already has a great story. During his junior season at Engineering and Science High, McCall was your classic, still-feelin'-his-way neophyte. Now he owns a Division I scholarship. The 6-4, 160-pound senior point guard, who earlier had made an oral commitment to D-II Holy Family, has signed with Niagara. Don't feel bad if McCall's name is unfamilar. He literally came out of nowhere.

A pair of freshmen, Brianna Lancetta of Bishop Eustace Prep and Sarah Kelly of Washington Township High, each scored four goals to lead Holy Family (14-4) to a 15-10 win over Georgian Court (12-7) for the Tigers' first Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference women's lacrosse championship on Sunday afternoon in Lakewood, N.J. Goalkeeper Melissa Jenkins (Interboro) made 12 saves and was named the tourney's most valuable player. Jenkins was joined on the all-tourney team by Lancetta and Kelly, plus teammate Stephanie McNesby (Archbishop Ryan)

Swarthmore's Karen Borbee was named the Centennial Conference coach of the year in women's lacrosse on Tuesday. Now completing her 19th season, the graduate of Penncrest High and the University of Delaware is a former member of the U.S. national team and is in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Swarthmore's Annalise Penikis and Caroline Murphy (both from Strath Haven High) were named first team all-conference, as was Ursinus' Alyssa Thren (Upper Perkiomen)

Holy Family's Stephanie McNesby was named the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference player of the year in women's lacrosse on Monday, in a vote by the league's head coaches. The junior from Archbishop Ryan scored 48 goals and helped the Tigers (12-4, 11-1) to their first CACC regular-season title. Wilmington's Jackie Trainer, a graduate of Council Rock and Monmouth University, was voted CACC coach of the year by her peers. Joining McNesby on the first team are Kaitlyn Hall (Wilmington)

MOST BIG moments in Janet Clark's life happened at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church on a hilly, narrow street in Manayunk. Before Mass Sunday night, Clark recalled life's turning points as she prepared to step inside the 1849 church, a place where she'd been going since shortly after her birth 60 years ago. "My parents were married here. They were buried here. I was baptized here. My children were baptized here," said Clark, her voice quivering. "It's a family here and now it's a family being torn apart," she said.

LAUREN BATTISTA had 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead four players in double figures and give host Bentley a 84-73 victory over Holy Family in a women's NCAA Division II East Regional final yesterday. Bentley advanced to the Division II quarterfinals next Tuesday in San Antonio. Ana Cruz came off the bench to score 17 points and lead Holy Family (26-8). Erin Mann tallied 15, Kelly Brady had 13 points and 10 rebounds and Maggie Serratelli scored 10. Jacqui Brugliera added 19 points for Bentley (30-3)

The Holy Family women's basketball team lost a heartbreaker to top seed Bentley, 84-73, in the Division II East Regional championship game in Waltham, Mass., Monday night. The sixth-seeded Tigers led by as many as 12 points early in the game only to falter to a determined Falcons squad, which broke through in the second half. The Tigers closed the gap to two points late in the game and then went cold. Bentley (30-3) took a 76-71 lead with two minutes to play and controlled the action the rest of the way. Holy Family, trying to play catch-up, got caught in a cycle of missed shots and forced fouls.

There is one thing that the Holy Family women's basketball team has in common with the Cabrini men's basketball team and that is knowing when to go on a winning run. The Division II Tigers (26-7) won their 13th straight game on Saturday with a 71-61 victory over Southern Connecticut State in the East Region semifinals in Waltham, Mass. And the Division III Cavaliers (30-1) extended their winning streak to 21 games with a 78-58 victory over Scranton in the Elite Eight played in Middlebury, Vt. It was Cabrini's first appearance ever in the Elite Eight.

Delaware sensation Elena Delle Donne broke free from Drexel's stiffing defense in the second half and lifted the seventh-ranked Blue Hens to a 59-43 victory over the Dragons yesterday afternoon for their first Colonial Athletic Association championship. Held to just eight points in the first 20 minutes, the 6-5 versatile Delle Donne finished with 27, a few decimal points below her NCAA-leading scoring average to earn the most outstanding player award for the tournament at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, Md. The win gave the Blue Hens (30-1)

Getting to the school in a remote Tanzanian village meant 22 hours of travel, including three plane rides and an exceedingly bumpy, four-hour Jeep trek. But Sister Francesca Onley, the 79-year-old president of Holy Family University, is glad she made the trip. With money from a United Nations organization, Holy Family teamed with a Stanford University professor to give handheld learning computers and phones to teenagers who live in impoverished conditions who had little previous experience with technology.