Nation's No. 1 Team Neumann-Goretti Has Unfinished Business Ahead
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Their voices have yet to be heard. Not the way they want it. The girls on the Neumann-Goretti girls' basketball team took the slow walk off the Hershey Park Arena floor last year in a solemn line, filled with anger at a lost opportunity, frustrated over the fact they didn't play as well as they could have in failing to win the PIAA Class AA girls' state basketball championship.
Now the Saints find themselves as the nation's No. 1 team, according to USA Today and other respected media. Neumann-Goretti is beginning the first phase of getting back to the state championship, beginning by defending its Catholic League championship next week.
The Saints, who are 22-0 this and 51-1 over the last two seasons, are ready for the challening task ahead.
"It hurt everything when we lost in the state championship last year," said C.C. Cryor, the Saints' talented senior point guard who's headed to Georgia Tech on a basketball scholarship. "I picked up a basketball the next day and we all talked about not feeling like that again, hurting like that. I didn't see us as No. 1 in the country, but I thought we could have a perfect season. We have a lot of motivation behind us."
Sianna Martin, Cryor's backcourt cohort, had a feeling last year good things would come.
"I think what's happened to us is like a fire up our behinds, we probably have the biggest target on our backs right now, we're No. 1 in the country and everyone is out to get us," said Martin, who has a basketball scholarship to Towson. "Everyone wants to beat us. I think we've gained a lot of fans, but I know we have a lot of people who dislike us as well. You never had a girls' team from Philadelphia No. 1 in the country before. A lot of people don't like that. We're making history. We have to win the state championship for all of the people who said we couldn't. We have to do it for them."
