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By Brian Weaver
DOYLESTOWN – As Central Bucks West’s fans piled onto their boys’ basketball team in celebration at midcourt, forward Joe DiLullo jogged out of the fray, a huge grin on his face.“I was scared for my life in there!”
Strange to hear him talk about fear when just a moment before, with a huge conference game on the line and the crowd in a wall-shaking frenzy, the Bucks’ senior calmly drained two free throws with no hesitation to down Souderton in a 47-46 thriller in Doylestown.
DiLullo’s pair of foul shots put a cap on a CB West (3-1 overall, 2-0 SOL Continental Conference) victory that saw the Bucks rally from nine points down to send the game to a grueling extra period, an extra period that saw only three total points in which opportunity after opportunity passed by without either team making a field goal. Neither side even managed a point in overtime until the Indians’ Anthony Lewis hit from the charity stripe with 18 seconds to play.
With 8.4 seconds left in OT, DiLullo – who had fouled Lewis to put him on the line and allow the free throw – drew a foul from Lewis and forced himself to push the magnitude of the situation away.
“They’re free throws, just like you’ve shot your entire life,” he explained. “You have to try to block [everything] out and think of it as just two free throws.”
“Joe hit those free throws so calmly,” CB West head coach Adam Sherman beamed afterwards. “You practice them every day, so you’ve got to be proud to see all that hard work pay off.”
No West fan was imagining hard work paying off with five minutes left in regulation. Instead, after being tied at 29 just into the third quarter, visiting Souderton (2-1, 1-1) went on a 14-5 run that saw the home side go ice cold from the floor. Despite stopping the Indians on several trips down the floor, the Bucks could not buy a basket. And though their defense eventually became stifling, they couldn’t stop everyone.
For the first 27 minutes of the game, fans were treated to the Jimmy Connolly show. The Souderton guard carried the Indians through the first three quarters. After the Bucks pulled to within 32-30 early in the second half, it was Connolly who drained back-to-back treys from the same spot in the left corner to push the Indian lead to eight, the largest for either team to that point. It would grow to 43-34 – capped by a Connelly 3 – before the Bucks began their comeback.
“Every time Connolly got an open look at the rim, it was good, so he made it even more difficult to defend them,” Sherman said. “The goal in the first half was to limit his touches. We tried two types of defense and neither of them worked too well.”
Connolly finished with 27 points on the night, hitting seven three-pointers along the way.
“Jimmy was on the mark early,” Souderton head coach Perry Engard said. “He worked hard to get open. He deserved the shots he got.”
As Connolly rained on West, the Bucks couldn’t find an answer to the Indians’ defense.
“We clicked offensively for the first half, but in the second half we had open looks and we missed a lot of little shots,” Sherman said. “[Lewis] changed a lot of shots, got a couple walks on kids because they were thinking about where he was. He helped get us out of rhythm. Perry did a good job. He went into a 1-3-1 with [Lewis] in the middle and really clogged it up for us.”
Despite the big ramifications of the early-season clash between two teams favored to finish in the top of the conference, Engard stuck with the relatively inexperienced Lewis when he saw the trouble that move had caused the Bucks.
“This is the first game he’s started in a Souderton uniform, jayvee or varsity,” Engard said. “He gave us everything he had and hit some big free throws down the stretch. I couldn’t take him off the floor. I wanted to go for experience, but you dance with the girl that brung ya.”
Engard also used a 2-3 to close down the Bucks for much of the second half, a strategy he was pleased with at the end of the tough loss.
“I was trying to save our legs, and had we not gone to zone, I don’t know if we would have had any legs in overtime,” he said. “I just thought when we came out of it we should have tried to win the game.”
Sherman had to reach deep into his bench to keep West in the game, especially at point guard. Starter Chris DiLullo picked up three fouls in the first four minutes of the second half and a fourth with 2:01 left in the 3rd quarter. He fouled out with 2:38 left in the game, leaving brother Joe worried.
“I was nervous,” he admitted. “I love our other two point guards, but I just feel a certain security with my brother when he’s handling the ball. He’s a great decision maker and a great point guard. Ryan Fiore and Chris Blair were able to really step up and help us win the game.”
The Bucks couldn’t find their feet until just over the 3:30 mark, when Reills Reichwein swooped in to collect a loose ball in the middle of the lane and lay it in. He followed with a three from the left corner to pull CB West within four at 43-39. The home court advantage kicked in.
Cheering rose to bedlam as Billy Carroll transformed what looked like a West turnover into a save, diving on a loose ball and calling timeout before he could travel with it at the 1:23 mark. The Bucks missed their shot, but Souderton then missed the front end of two consecutive one-and-ones in front of the rabid West student section. 
After the first, Joe DiLullo curled around from the left elbow to lay one in. On the second, Pat Furst collected a long outlet pass and tied the game at 43 with a layup with just 41 seconds to play.
Joe DiLullo and Connolly traded pairs of free throws, and with four seconds left Connolly had a chance to tie the game from his potent left corner. But the Bucks’ defense held fast, and a double-team forced Connolly to hurry his shot and clank it harmlessly off the front of the rim.
Naturally it was Connolly again with the ball in the final seconds of overtime. Driving the length of the court, splitting the Bucks’ defense, he looked for the last six seconds every bit the part the hero that the script had written him to be. But his left-handed layup sat on the front of the rim for a second that felt like an hour before falling off the front, fittingly landing in the arms of none other than Joe DiLullo, the Buck that stole the ending from him and made it his own.
His ball. His overtime. His win.
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