PHILADELPHIA — Kerri Shields was carrying the District 12 Class AAA girls basketball championship trophy.

Her mom, Renie, looked on and smiled.

Earlier in the week, Kerri and Erin Shields had helped Archbishop Carroll earn its second consecutive Catholic League girls basketball championship plaque.

“We only won one,” Renie Shields said, thinking back to her days as the point guard at West Catholic High. “(Mary and Patty Coyle) and I talked so often about how we wished we could have played in a game like this against the Public League when they had players like Yolanda Laney and Marilyn Stephens. University City was the team back then and we were dying to play them, but they said we couldn’t.

“Those Public League teams were some very good teams.”

Saturday afternoon at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, Carroll became the first Catholic League team to earn a District 12 Class AAA crown, defeating Public League challenger Prep Charter, 55-31. The Patriots (25-1), who have won 17 in a row, open play in the PIAA Class AAA Tournament Saturday, taking on District Three’s fifth-place team (West York). Monsignor Bonner High has been mentioned as a possible site for the contest.

Carroll led after one period, 12-7, then Kerri Shields got 11 of her 14 points in the second period to help the Pats boost their advantage to 13 points by halftime.

“My sister (Erin) and I watched the tape of their (Public League) championship game,” Kerri (14 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three steals) said. “You could see that they would try to press us and we worked on things we could do against that.”

What the Patriots could do was get inside for easy shots. What they didn’t always do was finish when Shields delivered some sharp passes.

Senior Hollie Mershon (16 points, five rebounds, three assists, three steals) took advantage of some of Shields’ passes and got to the hoop to score 14 of her points in the second half.

“We just came here to run our offense,” Mershon said. “When they overplayed us, we got those backdoors. I wasn’t making my shots in the first half (1-for-5 from the floor) so I gathered my thoughts at halftime and came out ready for the second half.

“(Playing for the district title) is something new and exciting.”

Now we get the chance to play for the state championship.”

Kaitlin Cole added nine points, five rebounds and two assists for Carroll and Jen Carney came off the bench to hit both of her shots, grab three rebounds, make one steal and get one assist.

“We play games in (the Nike Classic in Phoenix) and at places like Christ The King (Bronx, N.Y.) to be ready for games like this,” Creighton said.

“That team played very hard and guarded the ball. Now we’ve got to find out something about West York.”

What Carroll made happen was 22 turnovers by the Huskies (18-6).

“I thought we played very good defense,” Creighton said. “They like to dribble-drive to the rim and we took that away.

“Actually I thought this game might be more high scoring. We gave them different looks and took advantage of it.”