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By Nate Oxman
Among the many bits of wisdom senior forward Fran Rafferty has received from his Upper Merion coaching staff, there are two that clearly proved valuable in a 54-45 come-from-behind Suburban One American Conference win over visiting Upper Moreland on Friday.The first was that each of the Vikings’ opponents this season would surely be focusing the majority of their attention on shutting down the 6-foot-5 Rafferty, a second-team all-SOL American performer a year ago, and that in order for the team to succeed, he needed to contribute in other ways.
“That’s pretty much our thought process for Fran,” said Upper Merion Coach Jonathan Groom. “In the past, being the focus of the defense with double teams and triple teams coming from all different areas, he would panic and make a quick decision instead of making the best decision.
“We tried to stress to him to take his time, slow the game down, and make a good decision instead of a fast decision.”
And Rafferty did just that, patiently passing out of double- and triple-teams to find open teammates, while helping to fuel a third quarter in which the Vikings outscored the Bears 23-9.
A blanketing Golden Bears defense kept Rafferty in check throughout the entire first half. He scored just two points, those coming courtesy of an offensive rebound and a putback for the first score of the game, and was limited to only a handful of looks.
With their offense unable to run through Rafferty, the Vikings committed five first-quarter turnovers and fell behind 15-10.
The deficit grew to 25-14 with two minutes, 27 seconds to play in the first half, thanks to a driving layup from Bears’ senior forward Nick Giordano, but the second bit of basketball wisdom – plus the hot hand of senior guard Ryan McGee – keyed an impressive second-half comeback.“Coming into the season my brother [Matt], who is an assistant coach, along with the other coaches stressed to me that I am going to be double-teamed a lot because they didn’t really think we had anyone else to worry about coming back this year,” said Rafferty, who rallied to score 14 of his 15 points in the second half. “But we have a lot of weapons on this team.
“You saw McGee hitting shots tonight. Robbie Griffith was hitting shots, Pat Belford got into the lane, Paul Kubler hit his shots. So when those guys around me are doing their jobs it opens things up for me.”
The Vikings’ sluggish start to Friday’s contest was nothing new. In fact, it’s been an all-too-frequent occurrence this season.
“In the first half we kind of came out slow,” said Rafferty. “That has happened quite a few times this year. We would just come out and just try to feel the other team out instead of coming out and playing our game. “
In an effort to put an end to the trend the coaches asked Rafferty to become more vocal with his teammates. He did just that at intermission.
“Like I said, we’ve done this a couple times this year, came out flat, and I’ve kind of been quiet,” said Rafferty. “The coaches told me that I had to start getting on the guys. So I stopped the guys at the end of the hallway at halftime and just said, ‘Look, we have to turn it up. We only have so many games left to play as seniors,’ and on top of that we really, really want to get to districts this year. So to get this win, especially on our home court, it was huge.”
McGee, who beat the first-half buzzer with a three-point bucket, took full advantage of the Bears’ continued focus on locking down Rafferty, who repeatedly passed out of double-teams to either find McGee spotting up on the perimeter or hit seniors Patrick Belford and Paul Kubler close to the bucket for easy scores.
“In the first half we didn’t have any energy,” said McGee. “We weren’t ready to play. In the second half we just came out firing. Our captain, Fran Rafferty, he told us [at halftime] that we needed to step up.”
McGee (16 points) knocked down four of his five three’s on the night in the third quarter, including a pair in the first 2:05 of the period as part of an 8-2 Vikings’ run that pulled them within two at 27-25.“Fran is our leader,” said McGee. “He’s our best player, without a doubt. When they double-down on him our other players have to hit shots. We had to hit them.”
The Bears stretched the lead back to seven after a runner from senior guard Ronye Dennis (16 points, including four three’s of his own) before Rafferty was able to wiggle free for some open shots and the Vikings were able to use their full-court pressure to force four straight turnovers.
Rafferty, who is seeking interest from Division III schools such as Cabrini, Gwynedd Mercy, York College, DeSales, and Widener among others, trimmed the lead to two after posting up the 5-9 Dennis, backing him down for two and then burying a three-pointer on back-to-back possessions.
The first of the aforementioned four Bears’ turnovers led to a pair of free-throws from senior Glenn Reinert, the second turned into triple number five from McGee, and the fourth resulted in a trey by Belford as the Vikings used a 13-0 run to build their largest lead of the game at 40-34 entering the final frame.
Dennis opened the fourth with a three to trim the Bears’ deficit in half, but that would be as close as they would get.
“We knew we had to win this game,” said McGee. “We had to play this game like it was a playoff game and we did. We came out in the second half, we took care of the ball, we made open shots, and we played better defense.”
This was a crucial victory for the Vikings (2-7 overall, 1-3 SOL American) – their first in the conference this season - against the only other only Class AAA team in the talent-laden SOL American Conference that features one of the top Class AAAA teams in the state in Plymouth Whitemarsh as well as Class AAAA playoff-caliber squads in Norristown, Cheltenham, Upper Dublin, and Wissahickon.
“We don’t have too many cupcakes in this league,” said Groom. “Even the teams that don’t have good records in the league are very tough outside of the league. So this was a good win for the kids. We needed this win bad.”
The Bears have also taken their lumps against the Class AAAA brutes. They dropped to 0-4 in league play and 1-7 overall.
In addition to Dennis’ 16 points, senior forward Ben Plaufmer dropped 12 points and pulled down nine rebounds.
Upper Moreland (45)—Worley 0 1-2 1; Dennis 6 0-0 16; Morris 3 0-0 7; Giordano 3 0-1 6; Pflaumer 5 2-4 12; Smith 1 0-0 3; Wambold 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 3-7 45.
Upper Merion (54)—McGee 5 1-2 16; Griffith 4 0-0 9; Belford 3 1-5 8; Rafferty 5 4-4 15; Anderson 0 0-0 0; Kubler 1 1-2 3; Reinart 0 3-8 3. Totals 18 10-21 54.
Three-point goals: Dennis 4, Morris, Smith; McGee 5, Griffith, Rafferty, Belford.
Upper Moreland 15 10 9 11—45
Upper Merion 10 7 23 14—54
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