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By Brian Weaver
The whole second half, it had worked.
Council Rock South ran screen after screen at the North Penn defense, and down 54-51 with less than two minutes to go, everybody in North Penn’s gym knew a screen was coming.
And it still worked.
Tom Boyd rolled off a screen to drain a three-pointer that tied the game at 54, and a few foul shots later, the visitors had put the cap on a huge comeback to stun North Penn, 57-55, in the Knights’ Chris Smith Memorial Holiday Tournament championship game.
The Golden Hawks made some serious adjustments after a lackluster first half and then rode both their own sharp foul shooting and a shaky North Penn second half to overcome an 11-point halftime deficit and steal a win.
Boyd scored 13 of his game-high 17 points in the second half to lead a spirited comeback. His efforts landed him a spot on the All-Tournament team.
Nothing in the first half suggested that this game would be nearly as exciting as the third-place game that preceded it, a double-overtime thriller that saw Engineering and Science edge Upper Dublin.
In the first quarter, North Penn jumped out to an early lead, thanks mostly to a spirited effort on the glass. The Knights dominated the boards – especially on the offensive end – and held a 17-9 advantage after one period.
The second quarter saw more of the same, and the home team looked to be in complete control by halftime.
Guard Derek Brooks, who was named to the All-Tournament team and finished with a game-high 18 points, scored the first seven points, capping his personal run with a wide open trey from the left wing. By halftime, the Knights led 32-21, and South was just plain lost.
“They did a very nice job offensively setting screens,” Golden Hawks head coach John Easterly said. “We weren’t adjusting well to that. Most of our halftime talk was about how to play defense on them, adjusting our man-to-man defense.”
Boyd told his teammates the same thing.
“I just told them we had to rebound - rebounding killed us,” he said. “If we’d controlled the rebounding, we would have been fine in the first half. And our defense had to get a lot better. Their screens inside were killing us.”
That was an understatement.
The Golden Hawks, whose tallest regular is only 6-3, couldn’t fight through a North Penn lineup that features 10 players listed at 6-2 or taller. And in the opening minute of the second half, it looked like the trend would continue as Matt Albaugh hit a three to stretch the North Penn lead to 35-21.
But then Boyd hit a bucket. Got a steal and lay-in on the ensuing possession. Hit a wide open three from the left wing. After just two minutes, it was 35-28, and North Penn head coach Ron Hassler was calling timeout to figure out what was happening with 5:44 left in the period.
C.R. South had solved the problem.
“We made a couple of adjustments offensively where we set some screens for our point guard,” Easterly said. “John Thomas did a nice job getting to the basket and creating shots for himself and for his teammates. We were getting good shots, and they were knocking them down.”
Time after time, the Golden Hawks set up roadblocks and sprung a man free. Fittingly, it was a perfect screen that set Cody Nowlin loose to drain a three from the left wing that tied the game at 41. Though North Penn took a 46-44 advantage into the fourth quarter, Boyd and his teammates knew that the game was tipping in their favor.
“Once our defense picked up, we got the mindset that this game could be ours,” he said. “The intensity picked up, and minute by minute we said, ‘We’re in this!’”
North Penn did their best to prove him wrong.
Brooks hit a three to open the fourth quarter, and an Adam Jones putback built their lead up to 51-44. But then the Golden Hawks started to chip away again, and the Knights helped by committing costly fouls to put Rock South on the line.
The visitors made them pay.
C.R. South sank only two field goals in the last quarter. But the foul shots kept coming.
After going six-for-six from the line in the third quarter, Rock South went 8-for-10 in the last frame. Thomas, who joined Boyd on the All-Tournament team, made sure his teammates got to the charity stripe. His passing sliced up the North Penn zone, and his drives were just as devastating.
Twice John Thomas drove down the left side of the lane. Twice he drew a blocking foul. And both times, he hit both free throws. Four points, one at a time, but each of them a frustrating blow for Hassler and his team, a knock at the door.
By the end, Thomas would be a perfect 10-of-10 from the line, matching Boyd with 17 points of his own.
“When you’re up by ten and you’re putting the other team on the foul line all the time for twenty shots, and they’re a 75 percent shooting team – we needed to take a charge,” Hassler pointed out. “We’ll be taking charges [in practice] tomorrow.”
He didn’t hide his frustration at his team’s lack of discipline in the second half.
“Somebody’s got to make a stand, and that’s not happening yet as a team. We need to all do it all the time as a team,” Hassler said, noting that there is potential, but it needs to quickly turn into results.
“The pieces are there,” he said. “We play some really good basketball at times. I’m excited by how far they’ve come in three weeks, four weeks. But this is the month, right now. This next two weeks is when teams separate themselves.”
COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 57, NORTH PENN 55
Council Rock South (57) -- Cody Nowlin 4 3-4 13 Rus Chichkin 2 0-0 4 Paulius Mauricas 0 0-2 0 John Thomas 3 10-10 17 Tom Boyd 6 3-4 17 Jim Merron 2 0-0 6 Totals 17 16-20 57
North Penn (55) -- Derek Brooks 7 0-0 18 Matt Albaugh 2 0-0 5 Max Resnick 2 0-0 4 Adam Jones 1 2-4 4 Ian Simmons 3 0-1 6 Matt Possanza 6 3-6 15 Jake Markle 1 1-2 3 Totals 22 6-13 55
Council Rock South 9 12 23 13 -- 57
North Penn 17 15 14 9 -- 55
Three-Point Goals: Nowlin 2, Boyd 2, Merron 2, Thomas, Brooks 4, Albaugh
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