Upper Moreland defeated William Tennent in Thursday’s SOL opener.
SOL Freedom Division
UPPER MORELAND 53, WILLIAM TENNENT 45
The visiting Panthers had the better of play in the first half, opening up a 26-24 halftime lead. The second half belonged to the Golden Bears, who seized control of the game with a 20-point third quarter to go on top 44-37. Colson Campbell and Nate Best both had six points in the quarter, and Jose Hernandez added five, which included a 3.
For the game, Tennent was led by Tre Stracuzzi (14 points) and Jayden Bright (13 points).
Players of the game: Colson Campbell led UM with 16 points. Nate Best and Jadon Cybok both added 10 points
Coach Dan Heiland: “We pulled out a win tonight. I wouldn’t say it was a complete game, but it was enough to win, and sometimes that’s all you need, and we’ll take it any way we can get it.”
–The game: “Early on, we didn’t do a good enough job defensively to take them out of their game plan, and they were able to execute on offense nicely in the first half, so give credit to Tennent and coach (Robert) Mulville for that.
“For us offensively in the first half, we weren’t making shots. We kind of got away from ourselves. I don’t want to take anything away from Tennent on that. I think they did a nice job taking away the things we had success on earlier in the season. We just didn’t do it well enough tonight to start the game.
“We responded in the second half. We held them to 19 points in the second half, which shows a good defensive effort in the second half, so I’m happy with that.
“In the (20-point) third quarter, it was a group effort. We had a pretty balanced scoring effort.”
–Props: “Alex Costanzo is one of our senior captains and one of our back-up bigs. Our starter, Larry (Hughes), got in foul trouble early, so he got a lot more minutes tonight, and he did a really nice job in there executing our game plan. He played within himself, and he was a big lift for us to stay around in the first half. In the second half, he was on the floor to close out the game in big moments.”
Up next: Upper Moreland (5-0, 1-0 SOL) will host New Hope-Solebury on Tuesday, and William Tennent (0-4, 0-1) will be on the road at Cheltenham Tuesday.
William Tennent 10-16-11-8 45
Upper Moreland 11-13-20-9 53
William Tennent (45) – Tre Stracuzzi 5 0-0 14; Luke Torok 1 0-0 3; Ryan Bula 3 1-1 7; Scott Scheller 1 1-3 3; Jayden Bright 5 2-3 13; Tony Pople 2 0-0 5; TOTALS 17 4-7 45.
Upper Moreland (53) – Nate Best 5 0-2 10; Colson Campbell 7 2-6 16; Anthony Carson 1 0-0 2; Aidan Tuffy 1 0-1 2; Larry Hughes 3 0-0 6; Luke Roussel 2 4-5 9; Jose Hernandez 3 2-4 7; Jadon Cybok 3 2-4 10; TOTALS 23 4-12 53.
3-point goals: WT – Tre Stracuzzi 4, Luke Torok, Jayden Bright, Tony Pople; UM – Jadon Cybok 2, Jose Hernandez.
Wednesday, Dec. 11
NEW HOPE-SOLEBURY 41, MARTIN LUTHER 33
Rocco Massimino and John Nettles each scored 15 points to lead the Lions to the non-league win. Both connected on three 3-pointers.
Beck Alderson led the Lions under the backboards with five rebounds. Blake McCagg added four boards.
The Lions had assists on 15 of 19 field goals. Alderson and McCagg both had four assists, and Massimino had three. McCagg also had a team-high three steals. Linus Mackenzie and Massimino both had two steals.
New Hope-Solebury (2-3) will travel to Springfield Twp for Friday’s SOL opener.
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