Check out the results for SOL boys’ basketball teams in action Saturday.
CHELTENHAM 77, ABINGTON 73
In a classic battle between the neighboring rivals, the visiting Panthers edged the Ghosts in front of a packed house on Saturday afternoon.
“I’m so happy for the kids,” coach John Timms said. “This is a neighborhood rivalry, and I’m elated for the kids.”
Cheltenham’s big win came less than 24 hours after the Panthers were upset by Upper Moreland, and for those who thought the Panthers’ spirits might be low heading into Saturday’s game, guess again.
“I respect our league,” Timms said. “I think everybody does, but maybe because I’m new to it, I have a different amount of respect because after yesterday’s game we weren’t low at all.
“We appreciated the effort that Upper Moreland gave. They gave a gallant effort. They wanted to win.”
Both teams wanted to win in Saturday’s battle of wills. The Panthers – who lost four players to fouls – jumped out to a 22-14 lead after one quarter and took a 40-34 advantage into halftime. They led by 56-49 heading into a wild fourth quarter that saw the Ghosts rally to take a one-point lead, but that’s when senior Khalil White delivered a play that was a game changer.
“We were down one, and Khalil went coast-to-coast and hit a fade-away jump shot that put us up by one, and we never relinquished the lead,” Timms said. “It was that moment, that turning point – everyone saw that he was not going to allow us to lose on that one possession where they took the lead, and he came back as the leader he is and scored the basket.
“Between the last seven possessions, all we did was go to Justin Sutton and Khalil White. Those two seniors showed a great amount of leadership. They wanted to beat Abington. They wanted to end their high school careers with an Abington win. I was elated that those guys were able to lead us to victory by example – not just verbiage – and really hard work. I’m proud that they’re able to say they beat Abington.”
White finished with 15 points to go along with seven assists, and Sutton had a monster game in the paint, contributing a double-double with 14 points and 14 rebounds to go along with six blocked shots. Trevonn Pitts added 12 points, Ahmad Bickley, seven, and Maurice Valentine, six points.
The Ghosts received a dazzling 26-point effort from Robbie Heath. Eric Dixon and Rob Young both had 14 points.
“Our game plan was to let Robbie Heath take as many shots as he wanted to because that limited the touches to Eric Dixon,” Timms said. “Of Eric Dixon’s points, he had 10 in the first half. We wanted their guards to beat us. That was our game plan to make their guards beat us. Of Robbie Heath’s 26 points, I think 12 of them came from the free throw line.”
Rob Young added 14 points – eight came at the free throw line.
“They weren’t getting many field goals, and that was our point,” Timms said. “Between their big guys – Dixon and Joe O’Brien – they didn’t get many touches. We took the ball out of the bigs hands.”
As for Friday’s loss to Upper Moreland, Timms believes it served a purpose.
“What happens with us is after an article or two or ranking or two, you get a bull’s eye on your back, and you get the other team’s best every time, so even yesterday, I don’t think it was us not respecting them or looking past the game – not at all,” the Panthers’ coach said. “They just beat us. As a coach who’s 44 years old, I’ve been around this game long enough to know that at the end of the game, there’s always going to be a winner and loser. We just happened to be on that side of losing last night.
“At no point were we down or did we look at it – oh, we shouldn’t have lost this game. No, we understood it and took it for what it’s worth. I told our AD, I honestly believe last night’s loss prepared us for today. Not saying that we wouldn’t have had the same outcome, but today the focus was there from beginning to end. Believe it or not, we were focused last night from beginning to end and lost. They understood it’s not just being focused, it’s not just playing well – it’s doing it for four quarters and then putting yourself in a position to win. That’s pretty much what we did.”
Timms – in his third year at the helm – is hoping the days of not respecting every opponent are over at Cheltenham.
I told our kids, ‘If you watch enough college basketball, you’ll see a team that nobody knows about with four wins beat a team that everybody knows about with 20, and then you wonder how. It’s called basketball,” Timms said. “The one thing as far as what I wanted to change in my three years as far as the culture at Cheltenham – it was to respect the other opponents. I think Cheltenham had a culture where they didn’t respect the other opponents, and we lost to them for those reasons.”
Cheltenham (15-4, 9-2 SOL) will host Plymouth Whitemarsh in a key conference showdown Tuesday, and Abington (16-4, 11-1) – which saw its nine-game winning streak snapped – will host Council Rock North on Tuesday.
Cheltenham 22-18-16-21 77
Abington 14-20-15-23 73
Cheltenham: Khalil White 15, Anthony White 5, Ahmad Bickley 7, Maurice Valentine 6, Blair Brown 5, Amir Lewis 13, Justin Sutton 14, Trevonn Pitts 12.
Abington: Brian Close 5, Eric Dixon 14, Eric Dougherty 5, Dion Greene 3, Robbie Heath 26, Lucas Monroe 5, Rob Young 14.
QUAKERTOWN 70, COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 61
Less than 24 hours after bringing an end to Central Bucks East’s five-game winning streak, Quakertown made the long trip to Holland for an early afternoon non-league game against the Golden Hawks.
In the opening half, the Golden Hawks – themselves off an emotional loss to neighboring Council Rock North – had the better of play, opening up a 35-25 halftime lead.
The second half – that was another story entirely as the Panthers went on a 17-0 tear to erase that 10-point deficit and seize control of the game.
“We started hitting some threes,” coach Kevin Keeler said. “The clamped on Griffin pretty much – he had 22 of his 26 in the second half. You just can’t keep him down for a whole game.”
The Panthers outscored the Hawks 24-7 in the third quarter and 45-26 in the second half.
In addition to scoring 16 points, Schmidt – who buried a pair of three-pointers – also had a team high 11 rebounds.
Making the Panthers’ offensive outburst even more impressive was the fact that they were without their second leading scorer, JR Grimmage, because of a religious obligation. Branden Lewis picked up some of the slack in Grimmage’s absence, scoring 14 points. Nick Drosnock added 11, and Ryan Howard added nine on three three-pointers.
“We were down a big man, but we just shot the ball well and played great defense,” Keeler said. “Branden Lewis played great. He had 14 points as a six-foot skinny forward. That’s the sort of stuff you love in high school basketball.
“He’s playing with a torn meniscus, and he just had a great game today. It was fun to see him contribute like that.”
Rock South was led by the double-digit scoring efforts of Alex Nordenholt (15 points) and Kevin Newbert (14 points). Austin Thomas added eight and Mike Stock, seven points.
The two teams combined for 15 three-point baskets with the Golden Hawks accounting for nine of those. Nordenholt had three triples while Thomas, Newbert and Stock had two each.
For the Panthers, who have won three of their last five games, Saturday’s victory was another step toward finishing the season strong.
“We’ve been having tough losses this year, and Hatboro smoked us on Tuesday,” Keeler said. “We gave them off on Wednesday, and we went to DeSales (University) to see the boys’ team play.
“We regrouped on Thursday, had a real good practice, and we played great against East for a big win. They beat us the first time (51-49), and we took care of them on Senior Night.
“It’s the mental approach we have with the kids – sometimes the talent’s not there, but the attitude, the hustle is. Hatboro embarrassed us Tuesday, but this shows the character they have that they listen to us as coaches.
“We’re feeling good, we want to finish strong. We have Central Buck South on Tuesday and Pennridge on Thursday. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Quakertown (7-13, 2-10 SOL) will be at the road at Central Bucks South on Tuesday and Council Rock South (7-12, 5-7) will travel to Pennsbury that same day.
Quakertown 14-11-24-21 70
Council Rock South 17-18-7-19 61
Quakertown: Ty Harrison 2, Ryan Howard 9, Rob Mestayer 2, Branden Lewis 14, Nick Drosnock 11, Kevin Juszynski 4, Griffin Schmidt 26.
Council Rock South: Austin Thomas 8, Jim Rebholz 2, Alex Nordenholt 15, Kevin Newbert 14, Ryan McNamee 2, Mike Stock 7.
PENNSBURY 70, DOWNINGTOWN EAST 67 (OT)
Addison Howard hit a jumper with two seconds showing on the scoreboard clock, knotting the score and sending Saturday’s non-league game into overtime where the Falcons outscored the Cougars 8-5 to earn the non-league win.
“We had a lead in the third quarter and our guys fell away from the game plan a little bit and gave Downingtown East an opportunity to get back in the game,” coach Bill Coleman said. “We lost one of their players – Ryan Cahill – a few times defensively, and we took a few bad shots here and there to let them back in the game.”
The Falcons – who led by as many as eight – trailed by five with less than four minutes remaining in regulation but came back to earn the win.
“This is a good way to get back in it and it will help our mindset that we can fight back and battle with a team,” Coleman said. “(Downingtown East) is battle tested – they play a very tough schedule. They’ve played some very good teams this year. It’s good for the guys.”
Howard led all scorers with 20 points, which included nine points in the fourth quarter and four more – all from the foul line – in OT. Isaiah Carpenter also had four points in OT.
“Isaiah stepped up big time in overtime,” Coleman said. “It was a complete team effort to finish it. It was a good victory.”
The Falcons, who led 17-12 after one quarter, took a 29-24 lead into halftime. Mark Flagg accounted for 13 of those points. The Cougars went on a 17-6 tear in the third quarter to go on top 41-35, setting the stage for the Falcons’ gutsy comeback.
Included in Howard’s 20 points were three triples. Flagg finished with 19 while Carpenter had 12 points.
Coleman also credited the performances of several players in supporting roles.
“Vaughn Ward, Rob Daly and Raylil Winton-Law won’t show up in the scoreboard, but they did a very good job on their leading scorer, Jaret Cooper,” the Falcons’ coach said. “He ended up having 11 points, but they were all from the free throw line. We did a very good job of challenging and making everything he did difficult. They did a very good job defensively.
“Joey Monaghan came in and had a key steal at a critical point in the game towards the end of the fourth quarter. That was his only bucket, but it was key.”
The win evened the Falcons’ January record at 5-5 after a 7-2 December.
“Obviously, we went through a rough patch,” Coleman said. “We were definitely down on ourselves. Most of those games that we played except two of them in that stretch – we would get a lead, the other coach would call a timeout to settle his team down, and our guys seemed to relax. Instead of what we want to do, which is extend it, they kind of relaxed and let teams battle back. We weren’t able to counter that. It’s not an adjustment, it’s just a mindset.
“Every team is going to come back. We punched, Downingtown East came back at us, and we were able to get back at them. It was good to see.”
Pennsbury (12-7, 7-4 SOL) will host Council Rock South on Tuesday.
Downingtown East 12-12-17-11-5 57
Pennsbury 17-12-6-17-8 60
Downingtown East: Malik Slay 4, Jaret Cooper 11, Jarred Desrocher 6, Ryan Cahill 18, Will Peiffer 7, Garrett Burch 11.
Pennsbury: Addison Howard 20, Vaughn Ward 2, Corey Dea 1, Isaiah Carpenter 12, Joey Monaghan 2, Mark Flagg 19, Rob Daly 4.
NORRISTOWN 69, METHACTON 63
Roy Green is a difference maker.
While the senior guard was sidelined with an injury, the Eagles struggled. With Green back in the lineup, Norristown avenged a Jan. 5 loss to Wissahickon on Friday night and returned 24 hours later to defeat Methacton. Green led all scorers with 26 points.
He was one of three Eagles in double figures. Kether Massiaz added 15 points while Darryl Carr had 11 points and seven rebounds. Amir Carter contributed eight points, four assists and three steals, and Tyrique Lyons added seven points and a team high seven rebounds – three offensive for four points.
Methacton led 24-18 after a high-scoring first quarter and took a 41-33 lead into halftime. The second half was another story entirely as the Eagles pulled closer with a 16-11 third quarter (52-49) and then won it with a 20-11 fourth quarter burst.
Norristown (8-11, 5-6 SOL) will host Upper Moreland on Tuesday
Norristown 18-15-16-20 69
Methacton 24-17-11-11 63
Norristown: Darryl Carr 11, Roy Green 26, Kether Massiaz 15, Amir Carter 8, Darius McGowen 2, Tyrique Lyons 7.
HATBORO-HORSHAM 49, PERKIOMEN VALLEY 46
Clifton Moore had a big night for the Hatters in Saturday’s non-league win, finishing with a double-double that included a game high 19 points and 10 rebounds. Brian McEachern added 10 points. Joe Russell owned the paint, pulling down a game high 17 rebounds.
For the Vikings, Jason Jaworski led the way with 15 points.
Hatboro-Horsham (12-9, 7-5) will be on the road at Pennridge on Tuesday night.
UPPER DUBLIN 73, POTTSTOWN 61
The Flying Cardinals trailed by one heading into halftime, but sparked by the hot hand of John Barrett, they outscored the visiting Trojans 27-11 in the third quarter on their way to the non-league win. Barrett scored 11 of his game-high 22 points in the quarter.
“I think we really started attacking the basket,” coach Josh Adelman said. “Against their zone, we were just working it around the perimeter, and we started to really attack it and scored some layups, and the confidence kicks in.”
For the Cardinals, the game followed a familiar pattern.
“We’ve had some bad first halves, but then we seem to always wake up in the second half,” Adelman said. “After the games, everyone comes up and says ‘What did you say to these guys at halftime?’
“I wish I could say it at the beginning of the game. It would make our lives easier.”
Also for the Flying Cardinals, Ryan Stover added 17 points, Will Derr had eight, Jimmy Gallagher chipped in with seven, and Curtez Goff, six points.
“He does it quietly, but Ryan Stover put in another really good game,” Adelman said. “The thing I liked about this game – we got so many guys in the game, and so many people were scoring and doing really good things.
“We really picked up the defensive effort. With games Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, it’s nice to get fresh legs in there. It makes everybody happy.”
Upper Dublin (7-11, 5-7 SOL) will host Pope John Paul II in a non-league contest on Monday night.
Pottstown 13-16-11-21 61
Upper Dublin 11-17-27-18 73
Pottstown: Shamir Edwards 6, Brandon Tinson 4, Malik Brown 22, Saleem Johnson 6, Aaron Diamond 5, Larry Wingo 17, Qwantel Washington 1.
Upper Dublin: Ben Abel 2, Grant Adlam 5, John Barrett 22, Mike Cottom 2, Will Derr 8, Gary Fields 2, Jimmy Gallagher 7, Curtez Goff 6, Isaiah Henrich 2, Ryan Stover 17.
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