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WYNCOTE – The Glen Mills Bulldogs are tall and athletic, and they can create serious matchup problems on both ends of the court.Talk to Brian Johnson, and the Cheltenham coach wasn’t ready to use that as an excuse for his team’s 57-40 non-league loss to Glen Mills on Saturday night.
“At no point in time were we really into it,” the Panthers’ coach said. “We played without much passion, without much emotion. We could never generate any fire.”
The Bulldogs, whose starting lineup features 6-10 senior Aaric Murray, led this one from wire to wire.
“They rebounded really well,” Johnson said. “They went to the glass and got second chance opportunities.
“I thought they applied a decent amount of pressure to the basketball, but I don’t know it was necessarily anything they did. A lot of it was on us. We weren’t very tough.”
The Bulldogs opened up a 4-0 lead before the Panthers got on the scoreboard after a bucket by junior Ryan Francis, but when Cheltenham could not capitalize on back-to-back Glen Mills’ turnovers, there were early signs of trouble.
On the second, the Panthers immediately turned the ball back over to the Bulldogs, who received a bone-jarring dunk from Murray that rocked the house.
It looked as though the Panthers might have some momentum when Christian Santos answered with a trey to make it a one-point game, but Tyrik Gass responded with a basket at the other end.
The Bulldogs opened up a 14-8 lead before Francis scored on a drive to make it a four-point game at the end of one quarter. Another Francis bucket to open the second quarter pulled the Panthers to within two, but the Bulldogs answered with a 7-0 run to go on top 21-12.
It was a 28-17 game after a bucket by Anthony Jones at the 1:50 mark, but the Panthers closed out the half with four straight points from Francis to go into halftime down by seven, 28-21.
Any thoughts of a comeback were all but put to rest when the Panthers opened the second half with a four-and-a-half minute scoring drought. By that time the Bulldogs had opened up a 34-21 lead on their way to the convincing win.
“We had a pretty high intensity game versus PW the night before,” Johnson said of his team’s 65-57 loss to Plymouth Whitemarsh. “I don’t know if it was a carryover.”
Whatever the reason, the Panthers never could get their game untracked against a spirited Bulldog squad.
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