Mia Gassert and Hamburg's Staunch D Spoils Brandywine's 1K Celebration

Hamburg senior Mia Gassert and her Hawks teammates knew the buzz in Brandywine Heights' gymnasium was going to be different Thursday.

Brandywine Heights senior Addison Benner needed one point to reach 1,000 and the four golden numerical balloons signifying those digits were visible in the stands before the game even started.

"We all just didn't want her to score in the first 30 seconds," Gassert said. "Once we [held her scoreless] past the first quarter, we thought it was great. Then we just all wanted to play together and it got us motivated."

Hamburg's Mia Gassert at a previous tournament. (Photo courtesy of Hamburg)

Gassert was the primary defender on Benner throughout Hamburg's 25-22 non-league slugfest victory over the Bullets in Mertztown adding extra juice to the teams' league crossover game in January.

Gassert, a 5-8 forward, is fully capable of scoring, evident by her 19 points in Tuesday's win over Tulpehocken, but doesn't mind leaving her mark defensively or on the glass. In fact, she loves it.

"All four of my years playing high school basketball I've been about helping my team. I love defense. Defense is my favorite part. I love boxing out and getting rebounds," said Gassert, who finished with a game-high nine rebounds. "It's all about the little things that not everybody sees. It's not all about scoring."

The Hawks (2-2) forced the Bullets (1-1) into a low-scoring, grind-it-out environment, which Hamburg is comfortable operating in. Thursday was a far cry from last season's matchup between the teams when Hamburg was blown out 46-15.

"Our team is working so well together this year," Gassert said. "We were a little on and off last year. Our bench, our starters, our coaches, we are just working well together as a team right now."

The only basket of the first quarter was provided by Brandywine's Jenna Crist as the teams combined to shoot 1-for-20, including Gassert holding Benner to 0-for-4 shooting and preventing the 1K milestone.

"She always guards the other team's best player," Hamburg head coach Amanda McBreen said of Gassert. "She knows that and she enjoys that. I think she was really excited for this one because of that.

Hamburg's Mia Gassert. (photo by Rod James)

"Before we knew [Addison] only needed one point, [Gassert] was like, 'I can stop her!' Then when she found out it was only one point she said, 'Well, I don't know if I can do that!' It was pretty impressive for her to make it longer than the first quarter."

The inevitable happened in the second quarter as Benner reached the mark with 5:36 left to give the Bullets a 4-3 lead.

Marcianna DellaMonica responded with two free throws and a 3 to give the Hawks a 9-4 lead with 1:09 left before halftime.

Another Benner - Addison's freshman sister Sophia - answered for the Bullets with a nifty and-one and then a floater in the lane to the game 9-9 at halftime.

Hamburg's staunch defense troubled Brandywine in the third, holding the Bullets to 2-for-13 shooting. Gassert again held the elder Benner without a point and the Hawks took a 16-13 lead into the final quarter.

Sophia Benner's 3 with 2:36 left in the game gave Brandywine a 22-18 lead before Hamburg finished the game on a 7-0 run.

The teams will meet up again in Hamburg on Jan. 10.

	1	2	3	4	Final
Hamburg	0	9	7	9	25
Brandywine Heights	2	7	4	9	22

Hawks (2-2)	FG	FT	3’s	A	R	Points
Guers	1-6	0-2	0-3	1	8	2
Morales	1-8	5-7	0-0	0	6	7
Pinter	0-4	4-6	0-0	0	7	4
Davey	0-4	0-0	0-1	0	2	0
Rogers	0-1	1-2	0-0	0	0	1
Gassert	1-6	2-2	0-1	0	9	4
DellaMonica	1-3	4-8	1-3	1	1	7
Totals	4-32	16-27	1-8	2	33/40	25

Bullets (1-1)	FG	FT	3’s	A	R	Points
S. Benner	4-15	1-3	1-9	1	7	10
Henry	1-5	0-0	0-1	0	5	2
Maioriello	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0
A. Benner	1-13	3-4	0-6	0	3	5
Crist	2-12	0-0	1-7	0	4	5
Smith	0-2	0-2	0-2	1	2	0
Tomaine	0-2	0-0	0-0	0	5	0
Dalzell	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0
Totals	8-49	4-9	2-27	2	26/31	22

Turnovers: Brandywine Heights 20, Hamburg 24. Team rebounds: Brandywine Heights 5, Hamburg 7.