Check out the recaps for SOL boys’ basketball teams in action Wednesday. Truman file photos provided courtesy of Darryl Rule of J&D Photography.
SOL Patriot Division
COUNCIL ROCK NORTH 47, COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 39
(Check back for a complete box score)
The Indians made it a season sweep of the Indians, winning for the second time in as many outings against their neighboring rival. The ending of this one was not without its share of drama.
“It was a one-point game with eight seconds to go and we turned it over on an inbounds pass,” Rock North coach Jesse Krasna said. “It looked like South had a breakaway layup to take the lead, but Jack Blum sprinted back, knocked the ball off of a South player’s leg and saved the game for us. There were a few technical fouls on South shortly after, and Jack did what we are all accustomed to watching him do — he calmly sank all his free throws to put the game on ice. The kid is such a winner.”
Krasna acknowledged that there’s always extra emotion when North-South do battle.
“You try to approach the North-South game like any other game, but it really is a big deal to our kids,” the Indians’ coach said. “I am proud of how our boys handled an emotional game and am happy for our seniors because I know how much this game means to them and the hard work that they put in all year round to earn these kinds of wins.”
Krasna went on to credit the play of Connor Rushing, Adam Mahtat and Jack Blum in the paint.
“They had their way,” he said. “They did a great job finishing under control. Bernie (Parent) controlled the pace of the game and broke full court pressure for 32 minutes. He is so tough to guard because he involves his teammates and can go by his man to score at any time. Logan (Saifer) and Mikey (Sylvester) gave us so many extra possessions with offensive rebounds, loose balls and anchoring our defense. Garrett (Gromlich) spaced the floor well tonight.”
Council Rock North (7-5, 5-3 SOL) – 25th in the latest District One 6A power rankings – will host Central Bucks South in a non-league game Friday at 4 p.m., and Council Rock South (5-9, 3-6) will travel to Springfield Township on Friday.
Non-league
HARRY S TRUMAN 60, CENTRAL BUCKS WEST 51
(A complete box score will be added when it is received.)
The Tigers have certainly saved their best for last, winning their last two games after dropping their first nine.
Listening to coach Tyrone Lewis tell it, the team that jumped out to a 36-19 halftime lead over the Bucks in Wednesday’s win is the team he was expecting to see this year.
“These are the guys that have been three years with me, so they’ve been with me since the day I took over the program, so we thought for sure we had a complete team,” Lewis said. “We had guys that could handle the ball, we had shooters, and we had guys that could defend. We had it all. We had a total package type team.
“Unfortunately, like all the teams in the league and the state, the pandemic hurt us with not being able to prepare early. I told the team after the game today – we took the month of January to get in shape. Most programs take a month to get into shape. Unfortunately, for us, we were trying to get an offense in, a defense in and situations in, and you don’t have time to really get your guys in shape. You hope they can get in shape through games, which is hard to do.”
Wednesday’s non-league win came on the heels of the Tigers’ win over Council Rock South 13 days ago.
“Since I’ve taken over the program, this is usually when we hit our stride,” Lewis said. “I’m trying to get rid of that trend.
“Normally, this would have been game 11, and we’d have 10 or 11 left to go, so we don’t know what the outcome could have been if we had a full season. I told the guys – this is exactly where we were going to be because we didn’t have a preseason. If this were an ideal situation, this would have been game 10 for us. We did think this was going to be the team we would be these last two games. We wished it had happened much sooner.”
The Tigers had a lot of things going their way in a first-half that saw them open up a 17-point lead.
“We started off hot – we jumped on them early,” Lewis said. “My two starting guards – Kay (Clark) and Trey (Clark) – and my third guard – Ethan (Flail) – made shots early.
“Really, it was the defense in the first half. Defensively, we were locked in early. To CB West’s credit, they outscored us in the third quarter 19-7, so they made it a game. They actually took the lead early in the fourth on a three to go up 40-39. One of my guards, Chris Culver, hit a three to put us back.”
The Tigers held on for the big win.
“TreyShawn Clark, KayShawn Clark and Ethan Flail scored in double figures, and R.J. Brown-Winton had eight points off the bench, which was huge,” Lewis said. “It was a well-rounded game for us.
“The coach of West (Adam Sherman) was there when I was playing, so I know they’re a well-coached team. I knew that for a fact going into the game. I took that into consideration. This was a really good win for us. In the three years I’ve been here, this is probably the biggest win for me personally to beat a team like CB West. We hadn’t played in over a week, and to come out the way we did was huge for us.”
Harry S Truman (2-9, 1-9 SOL) will host Pennridge in a non-league game in its season finale on Friday. Central Bucks West (3-12, 3-6) will be on the road at Central Bucks East Tuesday to close out its season.
WISSAHICKON 63, BENSALEM 54
Sparked by the glittering 30-point effort of senior Matt Compas, the Trojans had control of Wednesday’s non-league game from wire to wire.
“Bensalem is a really good team,” Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson said. “Every year we’re very evenly matched. I think (coach) Ron (Morris) and I try to employ a lot of similar concepts.
“It was kind of funny – (Bensalem’s) James Ashford is a downhill player who gets to the basket, and we have Matt Compas who is a downhill player who gets to the basket. They have another kid, number five (Aaron Sanders), who can shoot the three really well, and he’s their second leading scorer. We have Jackson Intrieri who can shoot the three. I told the guys, ‘When it comes down to two evenly matched teams, it’s going to come down to – who’s going to dig in on defense and who’s going to make plays. We had the mentality – you’ve got to win the 50-50 balls.”
The Trojans, who led 14-8 after one quarter, took a 33-21 lead into halftime. Compass had 19 of his team’s points while Intrieri had eight, which included a pair of 3s.
“We ended up giving Will Kunzier a chance to start at forward,” Wilson said. “He’s been a kid who’s been a Dennis Rodman for us. He gets offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds. He just is an energy guy. He made some blocks early and got us some extra possessions, and I think us getting out to an early start and them not hitting some shots put a lot of pressure on them, and we did a nice job of not losing where their scorers were.
“Early on, we made a few more plays and late in the game we did. When a game’s a 10-point game, that’s all you need – you need to make a few more plays, and that’s what it came down to. It also helped that Matt (Compas) had a big night. If you were to ask him, what was our goal tonight? He’ll say, ‘I just want to win.’ He’s one of those kids – he wants to win, he wants to win.”
Also for Wissahickon, Intrieri had 13 points, Kunzier had eight and Josh Twersky added seven.
For the Owls, Aaron Sanders led the way with 19 points, which included three 3-pointers. James Ashford – who was forced to leave the game with an injury in the third quarter – had 14 points. Luke Zeidler added eight points, including a pair of 3s.
Wissahickon (10-7, 6-4 SOL) will travel to Pennsbury on Friday for a non-league game (5:30 p.m.). It’s part of a grueling stretch of six games in eight days to close out the season for the Trojans, who are 23rd in the latest district power ratings. Bensalem (7-9, 6-3) will be on the road at Neshaminy on Friday.
Bensalem 8-13-15-18 54
Wissahickon 14-19-12-18 63
Bensalem (54) – Tra Edwards 1 0-0 3; Aaron Sanders 6 4-4 19; James Ashford 7 0-1 14; Jake Delange 1 0-0 2; Allen Myers 1 2-2 4; Nikita Schafer 0 1-2 1; Luke Zeidler 2 2-2 8; Jack Wineburg 1 0-0 3; TOTALS 19 9-11 54
Wissahickon (63) – Matt Compas 10 8-12 30 Josh Twersky 2 1-6 7; Jackson Intrieri 4 2-3 13; Morgan Wilson 1 0-0 2; Earl Stout 0 3-4 3; Will Kunzier 3 2-3 8; TOTALS 20 16-28 63.
3-point field goals: Bensalem – Aaron Sanders 3, Luke Zeidler 2, Jake Wineburg, Tra Edwards, Wissahickon – Jackson Intrieri 3, Josh Twersky 2, Matt Compas 2.
PENNRIDGE 55, HOLY GHOST PREP 54
Colin Post scored a game-high 19 points, and his steal in the closing seconds on a Holy Ghost Prep inbounds pass near midcourt iced the win, but on this night, the game was secondary.
“We had a real scary situation,” coach Dean Behrens said. “The boys were concerned about one of their teammates who had to be rushed to the hospital. Holy Ghost did a wonderful job – their AD, their trainer – making him feel comfortable and getting the ambulance there quickly.”
According to the Rams’ coach, the situation had stabilized, but the game still took a backseat.
The Rams – sparked by six points from Luke Yoder – opened up an 18-9 lead after one quarter. They took what appeared to be a commanding 32-15 lead into halftime. Post accounted for 10 of those points. Matt Campione had six points on a pair of 3s while TJ Grenda added five points.
“We were hitting everything,” Behren said. “Colin Post was in attack mode. Campione hit a couple 3s, and we looked like we were rolling, and the second half came, and they were rolling and we weren’t.”
The Firebirds outscored the visiting Rams 39-23 in the second half.
“It was the tale of two halves,” Behrens said. “We never relinquished the lead. We missed two foul shots down the stretch with 10 seconds left and we were up one.
“They threw it to half court, called a timeout and then ran a play. We switched on all screens, and the kid panicked and threw a pass right to Colin Post and that was it.”
In addition to Post’s 19 points, Colin Monahan added 12 points, and Matt Campione had nine. Yoder had eight points.
Shane Reilly led the Firebirds with 17 points, which included five 3s. He scored all of his points after the intermission. Jack McDermott had 12 points, and Dylan Shead had 11.
“Give them credit – they hit a ton of shots,” Behrens said of the Firebirds. “Their point guard, (Jack) McDermott, bothered us a little bit. He’s really a nice player. The kid (Shane) Reilly hit some big 3s for them. All of a sudden, they were loose, and everything we threw up wasn’t going in.
“They started doing what Pennsbury did, scrambling and trapping on defense, and instead of attacking and creating a 2-on-1, we pulled out and got passive. I said to the boys during a timeout – ‘We’ve got to get aggressive here.’”
Wednesday’s win came on the heel of the Rams’ 61-58 win over Pennsbury one night earlier.
“It was a really quality win after last night’s situation,” said Behrens. “The reality of the thing is – we’re not playing many guys.
“We’ve got 5-7 guys that are logging a lot of minutes. Post, Yoder and Monahan are logging a lot of minutes. I thought tonight we’d be flat, and we weren’t the first half. We were like, ‘Wow, 32 points in the first half, are you kidding me?’ We told them at halftime that you don’t always shoot that well for a game. That’s hard to do – it’s going to be defense that wins it. We struggled defensively in the second half, but that was a good win on the road. I thought I heard that Holy Ghost Prep hasn’t lost at home this year.”
Pennridge (11-5, 6-4 SOL) – 11th in the latest District 1 6A power rankings – will travel to Harry S Truman Friday for a non-league game.
Pennridge 18-14-9-14 55
Holy Ghost Prep 9-6-23-16 54
Pennridge (55) – Justin Nichols 1 0-2 2; Luke Yoder 3 2-2 8; Colin Post 9 1-2 19; Matt Campione 3 1-2 9; TJ Grenda 2 0-0 5; Colin Monahan 2 7-8 12; TOTALS 20 11-16 55.
Holy Ghost Prep (54) – Shane Reilly 6 0-0 17; Chris Kada 1 1-2 3; Tyler Schmidt 1 0-0 3; Ryan O’Hara 2 0-0 4; Dylan Shead 5 1-1 11; Liam Hoy 0 0-2 0; Jack McDermott 4 4-4 12; Mel Lindsey 2 0-0 4; TOTALS 21 6-9 54.
3-point goals: Pennridge – Matt Campione 2, TJ Grenda, Colin Monahan, HGP – Shane Reilly 5, Tyler Schmidt.
CENTRAL DAUPHIN 83, PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 62
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