"'02-'03: The Season That Was and Wasn't" from Harry's Way from Vince Carocci

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2—‘02-‘03: The Season That Was and Wasn’t

For the Trinity Lady Shamrocks, the 2002-03 season began with such great promise because this squad was:

…Two years removed from a PIAA state championship and one year removed from a PIAA state championship final.

…Returning four key seniors—Jill Glessner, Kara Stetler, Samantha Ramus and Lauren Nelson, college scholarship recruits all—from their spirited state championship runs of the previous two seasons.

…A team that had recorded a 54-12 record over that two-year span.

… A team with three Central Pennsylvania Big 15 selections (Glessner, Stetler, Ramus); two future first-team 02-03 All-State designees (Glessner and Stetler), and a 1,000-point career scorer (Glessner).

…And a team with a coach who (at that point in time) had compiled a 464-94 record in his 18-year run at the 600-student high school just minutes and a river divide from the Pennsylvania state capital city of Harrisburg.

As these things go, you might say, the table for success was seldom better set for the Lady Shamrocks.

“We knew we had a great team back,” DeFrank recalled. “We knew we could go a long way. We never talked about it…never talked about expectations. We kept stressing this was a new year with new opposition. But I really wasn’t concerned that overconfidence would be a problem based on their performance over the last three years.”

The season, in fact, played out pretty much as expected. The Lady Shamrocks, a AA/AAA school by enrollment standards, had been playing at the AAAA (Division One) level in the Mid-Penn Conference since DeFrank’s third season in 1987. And they had done pretty well, winning seven consecutive league championships after they made the jump and nine in all in their first 13 years of play.

January, DeFrank’s crew was 16-1. Their 16^th victory came at the expense of powerful Archbishop Carroll of Philadelphia, ranked Number Eight at the time in the Eastern Region of the nation by USA Today. A report (or was it a self-started rumor?) reached DeFrank that one of the Archbishop Carroll coaching staff had called around before scheduling the game to determine whether Trinity was “good enough” to play the nationally ranked Lady Patriots. Though unconfirmed, DeFrank shared the information with his squad. What good is bulletin board material, after all, if you don’t post it? After Trinity dispatched Archbishop Carroll, 44-38, Kara Stetler, the Shamrocks, spunky, lightning-quick point guard and court general, told Andrew P. Shay of the Harrisburg Patriot-News: “I think we’re good enough.”

Jill Glessner put the game in another light. “Win or lose, it didn’t matter,” she said to the Carlisle Sentinel’s Jeff Pratt. “A game like this gets us pumped up. It makes us better.” Archbishop Carroll, Shay noted in his account, used an eight-player rotation. Trinity, six. “This time six won,” he wrote.

To no one’s surprise, the Lady Shamrocks made another strong run through the 2003 AAA District 3 competition. It culminated with a picture perfect championship victory over perennial power Lancaster Catholic, 76-30. The easy win was bittersweet for DeFrank because the Lady Crusaders were coached by his longtime friend of over a quarter of a century, Lamar Kauffman, a member of the 500-win club that Harry DeFrank fast was approaching himself. “He and I are great friends,” DeFrank admitted before the encounter. “I love the guy,” he told Jeff Reinhart of the Lancaster New Era, “I really do. He’s my buddy.”

DeFrank expected a very competitive game from the Lady Crusaders, who had 11 District 3 AAA championships to their credit...nine under Coach Kauffman. But on this night, Trinity could do no wrong and the game was never in doubt. Trinity made almost as many shots (33) as Lancaster Catholic took (36). Meanwhile, the ‘Rocks pressure defense forced Lancaster into 30 turnovers while limiting theirs to 10. “They were just too quick for us,” Coach Kauffman conceded afterwards. That they were…at least on this occasion.

As events played out, the Lancaster Catholic trouncing may have been too easy a victory for the Shamrocks given what was to come. DeFrank later acknowledged he “thought a lot about that” himself. So did the players. “Coming off a blowout win versus Lancaster Catholic, our heads were held high going into states,” Jill Glessner confessed.

The fact is that fate also was working against the Shamrocks. In suburban Philadelphia’s District 1, the district favorite, Villa Maria Academy of Malvern, a region powerhouse which won its first 21 games before losing two of its final four, was upset in the second round of district competition. The Lady Hurricanes, 23-2 on the season, finished third in its field, earning a low seed for the state play-offs. That pitted them in the opening round of the PIAA Eastern regional bracket against the 27-3 District 3 champions, the Lady Shamrocks. “It wasn’t the best luck of the draw for either of us,” DeFrank remembers, “but you have to play them as they come.”

As perfect as the ‘Rocks played against Lancaster Catholic a week earlier, they were simply woeful against Villa Maria. It may have been, in fact, one of the worst games this starting cast played in their four-year careers. The Lady Shamrocks went without a basket on 10 consecutive possessions in the opening minutes of the second half and, with the clock winding down, the Hurricanes went to the foul line five times and converted nine of 10 free throws. Final score: Villa Maria 54, Trinity 46.

DeFrank was never one to crow over big victories; nor was he one to look for scapegoats in big losses. He knew how to win with dignity; he knew how to lose with dignity. That was another lesson his girls could take from him through the years. In this instance, he quickly held to form as he met with the high school press corps.

“It wasn’t one of our better shooting nights,” he said in his post-game press conference. “But here again, it’s the other team that makes that happen, and their defense definitely had something to do with that (Trinity’s poor shooting).” He went on: “You have to give them credit. When they got a shot, they made it. They hit nine fouls shots in a row, remember.”