Upper Dublin captured its third straight SOL Tournament title with a 68-41 win over Cheltenham. Photos courtesy of Greg Lindsay. Check back for a gallery of photos. CLICK HERE to go directly to Suburban One Sports’ BOYS’ BASKETBALL GALLERIES.
SOL Tournament title game
UPPER DUBLIN 68, CHELTENHAM 41
Kobe Bazemore’s smile told the story.
It turns out the UD senior and his teammates had plenty of reasons to smile. The Cardinals had just put on a performance that was as dominating as it was dazzling in Tuesday night’s Suburban One Tournament title game at Bensalem.
It began innocently enough with Bazemore scoring on his team’s opening possession, and then it was Justin Ragsdale burying a 3-pointer. That basket was followed by another Bazemore bucket, and then came a play that rocked the house when Bazemore tracked down a loose ball and found teammate Horace Jackson for the dunk that put the Cardinals on top 9-0.
“It feels electric,” Bazemore said. “It feels like you’ve got to just keep going, just keep going. It’s the best feeling in the world actually. Instead of going shot by shot, you just dominate and just get an adrenaline rush.
“Just the way we came out so intense. Our defense was just on them from the jump. I got a steal, Horace got a dunk. It was just eruption.’
In truth, the Cardinals were just getting started.
Chris Harmon broke the Cards’ early run with his team’s first bucket with just under five minutes remaining in the opening quarter. The Cardinals answered with a 9-0 run to go on top 18-2. Jackson accounted for seven points and Bazemore had a bucket, and less than five minutes into the game, the Cardinals had a 16-point advantage.
“We’ve been doing this for so many years now, and when we get in a groove, it’s like nothing and nobody could stop us,” Bazemore said. “I knew it was going to be a good night after the first (shot) fell. I was like, ‘All right, I got something cooking now.”
Bazemore was cooking, and so were his teammates. The trio of Jackson, Ragsdale and Bazemore combined for 50 points in the game – 37 in the first half as the Cardinals took a 41-13 advantage into halftime.
“It felt amazing,” said Ragsdale. “That was the greatest half we had all season. It all starts in warmups. We came out ready to play. We knew we beat them up earlier this year, and we knew they wanted to get back at us, so we came out with intense
energy. It was incredible.”
The two teams exchanged baskets in the second half, but the Panthers never put a dent in the Cardinals’ lead.
“Basketball can be a game of runs, and you’ve got to put games away when you can,” Brooks said. “We got off to such a good start, and you know you are not going to stay that way forever. We hit a little bit of an offensive wall, but fortunately, defensively, we at least held on so they didn’t come back.”
If there was any concerns whether the Cards would be in for a letdown after Saturday’s dramatic win over Plymouth Whitemarsh at the buzzer, those concerns were quickly put to rest.
“We talked a lot on Monday about reading our own press clippings and how were we going to respond to success – the job’s not finished and all that stuff,” Brooks said. “And our boys couldn’t have responded better.
“Cheltenham’s a good team, Pat’s’ a good coach. Today was more about how hard and intense we played and played the right way. That was the best first half we’ve played all year by a mile. Just the defensive intensity, sharing the ball on offense, toughness. That right there was the ceiling for us. That’s who we can be, so hopefully, we can manifest that a few more times because if we do it, we’re going to go far in districts and states.”
The big three: Jackson’s 21 points led the Cardinals while Ragsdale had 15 and Bazemore, 14.
“Ever since the PW game we lost at home – I didn’t play very good, so after the game, I took accountability,” Ragsdale said. “I said, “I’m gonna come back stronger, and I’ve been focused on getting stronger because if I play good, then the rest of the team plays good. If they play good, I play good. We just feed off the energy.”
Three-peat: This year’s SOL Tournament title was the third in as many years for the Cardinals.
“Each year has been special in their own way,” Brooks said. “The first one – we were a young group – we had six underclassmen in that rotation, and we had a school that had never won one. To win was like, ‘Oh wow.’
“Last year we had the whole group back, and we had a really good season. We should have lost that game even though we pulled it out. It was one of my least favorite games of the entire season because of how we played and how we handled it.
“This year was the hardest one because the other two years didn’t have a team like PW had this year, and just being able to beat those guys on the road – really fighting adversity till the end. And winning three in a row – I hadn’t thought about winning three in a row because I knew the task was going to be so difficult. I wanted to just take it game by game. It is exciting and I’m so proud.”
Up next: Upper Dublin has an opening round bye in the District 1 5A Tournament and is off until Wednesday, Feb. 18, when the Cardinals – the tournament’s fourth seed – will face the winner of #5 Upper Moreland/#12 Sun Valley contest.
Upper Dublin 26-15-17-10 – 68
Cheltenham 8-5-15-13 41
Upper Dublin (68) – Horace Jackson IV 8 3-3 21, Justin Ragsdale 6 1-2 15, Kobe Bazemore 6 2-2 14, Noah Cohen 2 0-0 5, Luke Caron 1 3-4 5, Lawson Tyler 2 0-0 4, Benji Ravitz 1 0-0 2, A Weston 1 0-0 2. Totals: 27 9-11 68
Cheltenham (41) – Chris Harmon 5 0-2 11, Jaedn Mosley 3 3-3 11, Isaiah Dill 3 1-1 8, Mark Hill 2 3-6 7, Peyton McClendon 1 0-0 2, Isaias Vargas 1 0-0 2. Totals: 15 7-14 41
3-point goals: UD – Ragsdale 2, Jackson 2, Cohen; C – Mosley 2, Harmon, Dill.
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