Friday night’s Souderton/Hatboro-Horsham contest is an SOL Featured Game, sponsored by Millennium Administrators in memory of Mark Picard. Check back for a complete game story.
When the Souderton boys’ basketball team breaks out of its huddle, the players say just one word – ‘Family.’ It is, according to senior captain Luke Moyer, the key to the Indians’ success this season.
“Everyone is selfless,” he said. “We’re a true family on the court, and every day at practice, that’s what coach is preaching about.
“Even in our huddle – what we say on three is ‘family,’ and I think that’s the secret to it all.”
With five league games remaining, the Indians find themselves sharing the top spot in the SOL Continental Conference standings with Central Bucks West. Both teams boast identical 8-1 records in league play.
“We all work well together,” senior captain Ryan Connolly said. “Our whole team – we all get along, we’re all good friends off the court and on the court.
“We just play really well together, and I think that puts us above some of the other teams.”
Last year, the Indians and Bucks tied for second place, two games behind co-champs Pennridge and North Penn.
So what has allowed the Indians to take the next step this year?
“I think just our overall chemistry as a team,” senior captain Mark Wonderling said. “Coach really reinforced defense this year, and I think we really pride ourselves in getting stops, and that really helps us transition into easy offense.”
If it sounds like three captains are echoing a familiar refrain, they are, and all three have played major roles in the Indians’ ascent to the top of the standings, beginning with their roles as team leaders.
“They demonstrate leadership qualities every day,” coach Dennis Stanton said. “We expect production out of them every night, and we expect them to work hard every night, and it’s an easy expectation because they bring it every day to practice, they bring it every day to the floor.”
Moyer, Connolly and Wonderling – referred to by Stanton as ‘the big three’ – all bring different talents to the floor.
“Mark Wonderling brings that complete player where he’s going to rebound, he’s going to guard, he’s going to have assists, he’s going to shoot the ball, and he can go to the rim,” Stanton said. “Ryan is the best post defender, the best rebounder and really has extended himself as a player shooting the ball.”
Connolly was averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds this season when he was sidelined for three weeks with a bout of pneumonia.
“It came out of nowhere,” he said. “I just thought it was a normal cold, and all of a sudden, it got really bad.”
So bad that Connolly was taken to the hospital where he received an IV and returned home.
“My heart goes out to Ryan because he’s just a wonderful kid,” Stanton said. “I visited him at his house, and he could barely get up. He was debilitated. He didn’t touch a basketball for almost a month, and he lost 18 pounds. He looks like a different kid.
“He barely practiced, and we threw him into the Methacton game, and he had four points, four rebounds, two assists, and he didn’t miss a beat. He was dead tired, but he’s such a smart player.”
Connolly admits that it was difficult to miss out on a major portion of his senior season.
“It was hard to not play especially not even to be able to see them play,” he said. “Just knowing I couldn’t do anything to help them made it a lot worse.
“I couldn’t do anything about it, so I just had to deal with it and try and get back, work on my conditioning and try to get my breath back and get stronger.”
Connolly is back to playing almost the entire game except for brief breaks.
“I’m feeling a lot better,” he said. “Each game I can play longer and longer. I feel my strength coming back, and my breathing is getting better.”
Connolly, who has received an offer to play collegiate basketball at Kutztown. Is a three-year varsity player along with Wonderling.
“He’s relentless in the fact that he wants to win,” Stanton said. “They want to win a championship, and they’re doing everything they can do to win it.”
Moyer, the team’s floor general at point guard, turned in a dazzling 32-point effort in the Indians’ recent 56-49 win over CB West, handing the Bucks their first conference loss and vaulting Souderton into a tie with West atop the standings.
“People forget he had five assists that night and facilitated the way we want him to,” Stanton said. “That was probably the best offensive performance I have ever seen by a high school player since I’ve been coaching.
“I haven’t been coaching too long, but (6)-for-9 from three is insane. He shot the heck out of the ball. All of our guys work extremely hard, but this kid soaks his life into basketball. We take one day off a week, and he’s sneaking in somewhere, and we have to tell him to stop. He just works so hard on his game.”
Moyer transferred to Souderton from Christopher Dock as a junior, and he immediately found a home.
“That’s a hard thing for anyone to do, and I told him when he came in, ‘Look this is a tight-knit group. This is going to be hard,’” Stanton said. “But it’s really hard to deny a kid that works that hard.”
Moyer carries his work ethic onto the practice floor.
“We do a lot of two-man shooting drills,” Stanton said. “If you shoot with Luke, and he’s your partner, you shoot twice as many shots as everybody else because he’s sprinting all over the court, and he’s passing the ball quicker than anybody else, and he’s working hard every single drill.
“You watch it happen, and you go up to his partner and ask him if he ever sweated that much during a shooting drill, and he usually says no. He just makes people better. His level of intensity – sometimes we have to scale it back. His intensity is second to none in practice, and it just carries over onto the floor at game time.”
Moyer, according to his coach, didn’t miss a day of lifting and was at every single fall workout. He is reaping the dividends for his hard work.
“You watched him play last year and you watch him play this year, and he’s a totally different player because he’s worked 365 days harder than anybody in the league,” Stanton said. “He’s really grown as a leader and as a person, and that’s probably been the most rewarding part of the season, just seeing him fit into the team.”
All three captains, according to Stanton, excel not only on the basketball court but in the classroom as well.
“That matriculates onto the court, and they’re really smart there as well,” he said. “They’re really good players, they’re really good kids, and they’re really good students, and you take them for granted.
“You don’t have to ask their teachers how they’re doing. You don’t have to ask what they’re doing on weekends. You don’t have to tell them not to go to parties. They’re just nice kids.”
While the three captains have led the way for this year’s squad, they are not in it alone.
“I think there are a lot of guys that go unnoticed on our team – guys like Dan Falencki, Greg Mendrzycki and Ry Yozallinas,” Wonderling said. “We have all been playing together our whole lives.”
“From top to bottom, all the seniors – we’re a really close group of guys,” Moyer added. “We’re just really good friends on and off the court.”
With the regular season rapidly winding down, the players realize they are coming to the end of a special era.
“(The years) have gone so fast,” Wonderling said. “Last year you kind of had in the back of your mind – okay, there’s always next year. We have to win these last five games if we want to win the league. We’re definitely feeling the pressure, but I think we’re up to the challenge.”
“Coming down to the last few games of league play, it’s really hitting me,” Moyer said. “Coach says it every day – every game we’re playing for a championship, and we definitely treat it that way.
“A conference title – that’s what’s on our minds right now.”
On Friday night, the Indians will host Hatboro-Horsham in the next in a series of must-win games down the home stretch.
Just the facts:
This year’s record: Souderton 8-1 SOL (12-4 overall); Hatboro-Horsham 5-4 (7-9 overall)
Last year’s record: Souderton 14-9 (9-5 SOL); Hatboro-Horsham (9-12 (5-9 SOL)
Last meeting: Jan. 3, 2012 – Souderton 66, Hatboro-Horsham 59 (Souderton: Luke Moyer – 28 points, Mark Wonderling – 17 points, John Kanas – 13 points, Ry Yozallinas – 8 points; Hatboro: Mike Brown – 28 points, Zach Quattro – 12 points, Ryan Kelly – 8 points, Paul Haggerty – 7 points)
Last game: Souderton 59, Central Bucks South 46 (Luke Moyer – 19 points, Mark Wonderling – 14 points, Ry Yozallinas – 12 points, Ryan Connolly – 6 points)
Hatboro-Horsham 47, Central Bucks East 25 (Zach Quattro – 14 points, Ryan Kelly – 11 points, Paul Haggerty – 10 points)
Souderton Roster
Projected starters:
#0 - John Kanas (6-2, Jr.)
#20 - Ryan Connolly (6-5, Sr.)
#21 - Mark Wonderling (6-2, Sr.)
#24 - Ry Yozallinas (6-2, Sr.)
#55 - Luke Moyer (6-0, Sr.)
The rest of the Indians:
#1 - Alex Walbrandt (6-2, Sr.)
#5 - Anthony Williams (5-11, Jr.)
#10 - Dan O'Hara (6-1, Jr.)
#12 - Steve Shaffer (5-11, Sr.)
#15 - Brendan Wagner (6-8 (Soph.)
#22 - Greg Mendrycki (6-1, Sr.)
#23 - Austin Murphy (5-11, Jr.)
#25 - Kurt Muhlberger (6-3, Jr.)
#32 - Dan Falencki (6-1, Sr.)
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