To view action photos of both games as well as the Coaches vs. Cancer event, visit the photo gallery and click on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
Bucks Hold Off Titans
By Brian Weaver
WARRINGTON – A full quarter without a field goal.
A pesky rival who wouldn’t go away.
A league contest on the road in a packed house.
The deck wasn’t exactly stacked in Central Bucks West’s favor Tuesday night, but the Bucks found a way to win.
Defense and some timely points from senior Kevin Sweet carried West to a grinding 46-43 win over Central Bucks South in a tight Suburban One League matchup to cap South’s Coaches vs. Cancer event.
Sweet had 13 points to pace the visiting Bucks (8-3 overall, 4-3 SOL Continental Conference) and Derek Dyer added 9 for West. South (2-12, 1-6) followed the lead of Jim Delgato (11 points, 8 rebounds), but overall both sides struggled overall to get the engine going from the field for most of the first half.
West’s touch went cold in the second quarter, as the Bucks went the entire period without a field goal. Only steady shooting from the foul line kept them in the lead, a 19-18 advantage at the half.
“We were taking too many jump shots,” West coach Adam Sherman explained. “They were daring us to shoot the three, and we were missing.”
But then Sweet took over.
As South started to find their groove from the field in the third quarter, the Bucks’ senior forward seemed to answer every time for the visitors. He drained a three to open the quarter. After the Titans grabbed the lead, he got a reverse layup to go despite being leveled on his way up. When South took the lead again, he grabbed an offensive rebound and scored again.
In all, the senior scored nine of his 13 in the third frame, keeping West’s small lead alive.
“He missed a couple of open shots early on, but he’s not going to miss the whole game,” Sherman said.
On the South side of the scoring table, head coach Jason Campbell had some offensive frustrations of his own.
“We started the third quarter with a turnover, a weak possession,” he pointed out. “Then, twice we tried to pass it to our point guard underneath, and with West’s big guys that’s not putting ourselves in a good position to score. We’re at a point where we have to learn from those kinds of mistakes.”
Campbell’s defense picked up the slack, though. A mix of man and zone, along with an occasional press, helped the Titans keep the West offense at bay.
“We held them in check for the most part,” the Titans’ coach said. “West does a very nice job sharing the ball. I’m happy with our defense tonight.”
While South managed to alternate buckets with West through most of the third quarter, the fourth saw West finally pull away, and it looked as though they’d break it open as the Bucks stretched their lead to 42-34 halfway through the fourth quarter. Dyer added five of his points at the start of that frame.
The Titans, however, simply wouldn’t go away.
Sophomore Chase Vonder Schmalz came off the bench and buried a pair of threes, one to pull South to within 42-37 and the next to make a it a 43-40 West lead with a little over a minute to play.
“Guys are stepping up,” Campbell pointed out. “[John] Staman has come up big for us, Steve [Schneider] had done a good job. Kevin Raymond gave us some good minutes, too. We have to look for other guys.”
West was ready for the pressure, though.
“In practice, we’ve been working on situations – end of game, end of quarter situations, up one [point], down one,” Sherman explained. “That was definitely better tonight.”
Despite having a hiccup in the free throw category late in the game – the Bucks missed 6 of 7 in the waning moments before Dyer sealed it with a pair – West held together as South upped the pressure late in the game, never surrendering the lead in the fourth quarter.
“We’re playing with more composure,” Sherman acknowledged. But, he added with a grin, “It’s easier to struggle and keep your composure when you’re winning.”
For his part, Sweet hesitated to give himself too much credit for the Bucks’ win, despite being a senior leader and an important part of that composure.
“We switch,” he shrugged. “Someone different has a good game each game.”
Tonight, though, it was him.
Titans Get Defensive in Win over Bucks
By Brian Weaver
WARRINGTON – Central Bucks South head coach Beth Mattern said she didn’t make any defensive adjustments at halftime.
She also said she didn’t see anything special on film that her team could key off of to rattle Central Bucks West’s cage.
And she said that when the Bucks tied her team at 17 in the second quarter, she didn’t tell them anything particularly groundbreaking, just to go play their game.
That’s pretty tough to believe.
After leading by just four points at halftime, South suffocated West with a masterful defensive second half and rolled to an easy 49-30 win over the rival Bucks. The game concludes the first round of the Suburban One League season for both the Titans (9-4 overall, 5-2 Continental Conference) and the Bucks (4-3, 6-5) and gave the home team some separation in the league standings.
The Titans picked the right night to come up big.
Their audience grew throughout the game as members from the community poured in – despite some questionable weather earlier in the day – for the 2nd Annual Coaches vs. Cancer game. The situation wasn’t lost on senior forward Kelsey Herrmann.
“It’s great, a good community night,” she said. “A bunch of local food vendors come out, and everybody comes. It’s really cool – we don’t normally get a big crowd.”
The sense of a common purpose was palpable among the crowd in the lobby at the raffle tables, and even in a gym segregated with black and gold on one side, blue and white on the other.
“Look at what we can do as a community,” PA announcer Larry Bowler boomed to the crowd, virtually daring cancer to holler back. “We can beat this thing!”
However, the Titans were more felony than fellowship on the court itself, tallying steals on seemingly every possession by the time the horn sounded at the end of the game.
Senior Brittany Kaewell had six steals in the second half alone to go with her game-high 23 points, helping the Titans to close the game on an 18-4 run.
“We know West fights hard for 32 minutes,” Mattern said afterwards. “Our defense wasn’t doing anything special - it was just what we practice. It was just execution in the end.”
That execution included just about everyone who touched the floor for South. Kaewell had steals on three consecutive West possessions at one point, finding freshman Alysha Lofton on the outlet after two of them. Lofton had two steals of her own and very nearly added more.
“She doing pretty good,” Herrmann said of her young teammate. “She does a great job stepping into passing lanes.”
Mattern agreed.
“She had a very nice second half,” the coach said.
Kaewell did a pretty good job assaulting the passing lanes herself.
“We just had to make sure we put pressure on the guards, which is where they get their points,” Kaewell said. “And after we get on a roll, the adrenaline definitely kicks in, gives me more motivation.”
The Titans, though pleased with the win, realize that this swing through the league was only one of two rounds in the Continental Conference.
““It feels really good. We struggled with East, so it’s nice to come out here and win,” Herrmann said. “But next time through we want Souderton and East. We had a really close game with Souderton, and I think we came out strong. We want to finish that way.”
Sam Colloi tallied 13 points for the visitors, and Calypso Carty added six of her own. South pulled out to an early lead, but West tracked them down and tied the game at 17 in the waning minutes of the first half. The Titans edged to a 22-18 halftime advantage, but a quick West bucket made it 22-20.
That was as close as the Bucks got, though. The visitors managed just one field goal in the fourth quarter.
West and South will both hit the road north on Friday as the Bucks travel to Souderton and the Titans to Pennridge.
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