It’s been a week since that magical night at Villanova University’s DuPont Pavilion when Norristown defeated Penn Wood to capture the District One AAAA title.
It’s a safe bet that both players and coaches are still reliving the game’s final electrifying moments - those wild, frantic seconds that felt like an eternity and created a scene that was as dramatic as it was riveting.
With 24 seconds remaining and his teammates on the bench with their arms linked and holding their collective breath, Sheldon Mayer stepped to the foul line. Norristown – thanks to a Tom Smith bucket with 1:17 remaining – was clinging to a 50-49 lead.
This was the big stage, and the Eagles were turning in the performances of their young lives.
Mayer – the picture of grace under pressure - calmly hit nothing but net on both foul shots, giving the Eagles at 52-49 lead.
The excruciating final seconds were about to begin.
With 15 seconds remaining, Penn Wood senior Thomas White clanked a pair of foul shots off the rim, but the Patriots – with a height advantage at every position – came up with the rebound.
As the final seconds ticked off the clock, the ball found its way into the hands of senior guard Will Brown, who launched a three-pointer from the top of the circle as an Eagle defender raced toward him. When the ball bounced harmlessly off the rim and into the outstretched arms of James Ramsey, the Eagles’ storybook run through the district playoffs had come to a glorious end.
The Norristown senior flung the ball into the air, and the emotional celebration was about to begin. Players and coaches leaped off the bench and dashed onto the court, wearing looks that were a combination of joy and disbelief.
Loking for the definition of ecstasy? This was it.
“There’s nothing more than this,” Mayer said.
“I never felt like this before,” senior Jarrell Gardner said. “I was so happy I couldn’t hold back. I can’t really describe it in words.”
Norristown’s mission as giant killers was complete.
The eighth-seeded Eagles – who had waited 19 years to call a district championship their own - had done what most would have said was impossible, knocking off top-seeded and defending state champion Chester and following that with a win over a Pennsbury team ranked number one in the state in The Patriot-News of Harrisburg.
The crown jewel came Friday night under the bright lights of Villanova University’s DuPont Pavilion when the Eagles gutted out a 52-49 win over third-seeded Penn Wood to capture the district crown.
“We know to be the best you have to beat the best,” senior Lorenzo Christmas said. “We feel we were the best team, so we went out there and proved it – beating Chester, Penn Wood and Pennsbury who were supposed to be the top three teams.”
In the giddy post-game scene, Khalif Wyatt, whose 19 first-half points kept the Eagles afloat, wore a perpetual smile as he posed for photos with ecstatic family members and friends.
“Unbelievable,” said Wyatt, who can add the name of district champion to the long list of superlatives used to describe the senior star. “I’m happy for everybody – my teammates, my coaches. Everybody deserved it because they worked hard. It’s a blessing.”
The key to the Eagles’ district title run?
“Our drive,” Smith said. “We want to continue to move on. We just push past self and move on forward.”
Fans need look no further than the three returning veterans from last year’s squad to find out where the team draws its leadership and strength.
“With me, Sheldon and Khalif coming back – that’s our confidence,” Ramsey said. “That’s the team’s confidence right there.
“We knocked off Chester, who was number one, Pennsbury, who was number one and Penn Wood, who obviously had height over us, but you can’t measure heart. When we put our minds to it, we can do anything.”
Mayer magic – All but lost in the shuffle of the fantastic finish was the intriguing matchup at point guard that pitted Sheldon Mayer against Penn Wood’s colorful floor general, Tyree Johnson.
It was the Norristown junior who clearly won that battle. Granted, that might not show up in the boxscore where Mayer had just four to three for Johnson, but it definitely showed up on the floor where Mayer did a masterful job of directing Norristown’s offense while his counterpart struggled.
“We knew he controlled their offense, and he had the ball the majority of the time,” Mayer said of Johnson. “If we slowed him down, maybe it would slow the game down.
“We knew their offense ran through him. When he was able to push the ball, they got good opportunities. We slowed him down tonight, and it paid off big.”
Penn Wood’s courtside fans spent the better part of the night imploring Johnson to shoot, and as the game progressed, they became more frantic. Johnson occasionally obliged, but his shots were well off the mark.
Mayer won the battle of point guards hands-down.
Smith’s stage – Tom Smith has got to love playing at Villanova.
It was the Norristown junior who scored with 1.7 seconds remaining in regulation to send the Eagles’ regular season game against Pennsbury at Villanova into overtime. Although the Falcons came back to win the game, Smith, who scored 12 points, served notice that he thrives in games with high stakes.
Last Friday night, Smith - strapped with foul problems from the outset - spent most of the title game watching from the bench, but when he received the nod to take the court in the game’s closing minutes, Smith was ready.
It was his strong drive to the hole with 1:17 remaining in regulation that gave the Eagles a lead they would not lose.
“It was awesome,” Smith said. “I believe it was just like when we had our last game at Villanova against Pennsbury. James Ramsey gave me the ball again.
“He has faith in me that I’ll go to the basket, I’ll either get fouled or I’ll score.”
“Me and Tom have been cool since we were little,” Ramsey said. “I trust Tom to make those layups. That’s my boy right there.”
Smith’s basket turned out to be the game winner, and as wins go, they don’t get much sweeter than this one.
“It feels tremendous,” Smiths said. “God has blessed us, truly blessed us – looked beyond all our faults and knew we needed this win.
“No matter if we won by one or won by 50, we won.”
A team effort – Friday’s district title game had been pretty much a one-man show in the opening half with Khalif Wyatt accounting for 19 of his team’s 20 points. Penn Wood led 22-20 at the intermission.
That changed in a hurry in the second half.
Less than 20 seconds into the third quarter, James Ramsey buried a trey on his team’s first possession.
“That was real big,” said Ramsey, who had the only first-half point not scored by Wyatt. “It was a turning point.
“Coaches were telling everybody beside Khalif to come out and be aggressive in the second half. Once I hit that shot, I got a rhythm, and I knew I had to be in an attack mode if we wanted to win the game.”
Ramsey wasn’t the only Norristown player to find his stride in the second half. The Eagles – sparked by 17 straight points from players not named Wyatt - outscored the Patriots 20-12 in the third quarter.
Lorenzo Christmas scored all 10 of his points in the second half, Jarrell Gardner, six points, Ramsey, five points and Sheldon Mayer, four points.
Wyatt scored just six of his game-high 25 points after the intermission.
“Together,” Wyatt said. “All five players on the court play together offense and defense. It’s not a one-man show. Everybody is doing their job. It’s a team effort.”
Runners-up no more – Last year Norristown was the district and state runner-up, but with the loss of several key players from the squad to graduation, no one was giving the Eagles much of a chance to do a whole lot this season.
The players and coaches simply used that as motivation.
“When we lost to Chester in this gym last year, we said to ourselves, ‘We’re going to come back and finish the unfinished business that we started,’” senior Lorenzo Christmas said. “Ever since then, we worked hard to finish out our goal.”
As the result of a late-season loss to Plymouth Whitemarsh, the Eagles (22-5) were forced to share the SOL American Conference crown with the Colonials, but they righted their ship when playoffs begin, earning one big win after another.
“It was our last year,” Jarrell Gardner said. “We lost in the district and state title game last year. We know how it feels. We didn’t want that to happen again.”
“We put our minds to it, and we worked very, very hard,” Christmas said. “We achieved our goal.”
And in the process, the Eagles silenced their critics.
“We proved our doubters wrong,” Gardner said. “Nobody believed we were going to be able to do this, but we proved everybody wrong.”
“Last year, I was very, very disappointed,” James Ramsey said. “For us to work so hard to get here and then to lose, it was a very big disappointment for us.
“This is a great feeling right now.”
While the Eagles may have wished for a different ending last year, they were laying the foundation for even bigger and better things this time around.
“Last year was something very special that not too many teams can do,” Sheldon Mayer said. “To get back this year and actually win it is a whole other thing.
“We have to stay focused because we’re going to the state tournament.”
Where, according to Christmas, the Eagles have one more piece of unfinished business to take care of.
“We have one more goal,” he said. “That’s a state championship.”
***
The Eagles begin state tournament play on Saturday when they will face District Three’s seventh place team, Elizabethtown (24-5) at Wissahickon High School at 2:30 p.m.
Pennsbury (22-5) will try to get back on track after back-to-back losses when it faces North Catholic (17-8) at Council Rock South High School at 1 p.m. North Catholic is the third place team out of District 12. Plymouth Whitemarsh (22-5) finished sixth in districts and will take on Southern (16-11), District 12’s second place team, at 2:30 p.m. at St. Joe’s Prep. The district’s eighth place team, Central Bucks South (21-6), will face District 12 champion Roman (18-8) at Archbishop Ryan at 2:30 p.m.
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