To view action photos of the game, visit the Photo Gallery and click on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
NEWTOWN - On Tuesday, Council Rock North clinched its second consecutive Suburban One National Conference championship.On Friday, the 2010-11 Indians earned a place of honor in the annals of school history.
By virtue of their 38-34 victory over Neshaminy, the Indians clinched a 14-0 league record (20-1 overall), making them the first boys basketball team in the history of Council Rock (both before and after the split) to complete an undefeated league season.
"Our guys made history," said coach Derek Wright. "I put it on the board tonight, that they had the chance to be the first Council Rock team to ever do this. So they'll walk forever with that. I'm really happy for them that they have that."
And while the team may have made school history, it certainly didn't come easy. The visiting Redskins scored the first seven points of the game, and had three chances to win or tie the game in the final seconds.
With the score knotted at 34-34 with 96 seconds left on the clock, Neshaminy held the ball, waiting for time to dwindle before taking a shot.
But while setting up the shot, North senior John Raymon tipped the ball to Charlie Anastasi, who fed it back to Raymon. The 6-6 senior raced down the court and stuffed in a layin to give the hosts a 36-34 lead. "That one possession, we were all in the huddle," Anastasi said. "We were excited, we were going to play defense, we were going to get a stop, we were going to get the ball back and we're going to have a chance to win the game.
"I'm not even sure what happened on the play. John tipped that ball away somehow, it just came to me and I got it to him."
Raymon, however, knew exactly what was going to happen on the play.
"I wanted to go in -- I saw the play coming," he said. "I just knew Dwight (Williams) was going to be dribbling around, I came in, got the ball, Charlie got it, kicked it out, and from there I was able to lay it in."
"The lucky thing was we had a foul to give," Wright said. "So we said if we had an opportunity to go for the steal, to do it. We were able to contain the dribble, forced a little bit of pressure. Charlie, as he always does, gets on the loose ball and John was able to finish it."
But the drama didn't end there.
Following a timeout with seven seconds left, the Redskins tried to knot the score. Raymon dove for a loose ball and was called for traveling, returning the ball to Neshaminy with 2.8 ticks left on the clock.
The inbounds pass went to Ryan Arcidiacono under the basket, but the tight defense of Matt McCloskey forced Arcidiacono to dribble out of bounds.
The Indians got the ball back, and after Aaron Morgan capped off his 10-point night with two free throws following a Redskins’ technical foul, it was all over but the celebrating.
"It felt like it was never going to end," Raymon said with a laugh. "After the turnover, the travel I had on the dive, I was like, 'Can anything else go wrong?'"
As it had done all year, the Indians' defense rose to the occasion, led by the stellar play of McCloskey. Drawing the unenviable task of guarding Redskins playmaker Arcidiacono, McCloskey kept the 6-3 junior under close guard throughout the game. Though Arcidiacono was able to net a game-high 18 points -- including eight in the third quarter -- McCloskey made him work for every point.
"Matt was on him almost the whole time," Anastasi said. "We wanted to faceguard him, try to make things tough for him. You've got to try to frustrate a player of his caliber."
"Matt's almost like an NFL defensive back who you can just say, 'There's the shutdown guy, we can worry about the rest of the floor,'" Wright said of the junior guard. "We can put Matt on the other team's best player and we can focus on other things. He's a great character kid, he can make open shots when people forget about him, and he had a ton of confidence guarding Ryan tonight."
For Neshaminy, it was Williams who lit up the scoreboard early in the game. The 6-3 senior scored five of his nine points in the first quarter as the Redskins jumped out to a 7-0 lead, then watched the Indians claw back to within one at 10-9 after the opening stanza.
The teams traded three-pointers to start the second, with treys from McCloskey (6 points) and Morgan around a three-pointer from Arcidiacono.
"You've got to give a lot of credit to Neshaminy," Wright said. "I think they controlled the tempo the way they wanted to, and really made us take perimeter jumpers. We missed a lot of perimeter shots. We took 11 threes in the first half, which is unlike us. That's a credit to them - that was their strategy.
"Tonight, we gutted it out. Both teams played very hard and competed really well. That was as great as I've ever seen a Neshaminy team compete."
Not that that came as a surprise to anyone wearing blue and white."I knew they were going to be coming after us," Raymon said. "We have something they want, and they wanted to win this game, but we fought it out and toughed it out."
The Redskins closed out the regular season at 18-4 overall, 11-3 in the league, and await their seeding for the playoffs.
The Indians will face non-league opponent Ridley on Saturday before heading into the playoffs, where they will likely be second seed in the District One tournament.
"Ridley is a game outside the SOL, so we get to see some other teams outside the league," Anastasi said. "And I think we all know every game we go into, we can win. That's a good feeling to have."
Neshaminy 10 7 10 7 - 34
Council Rock North 9 10 10 9 - 38
Neshaminy: Tyler Katz 5; Ryan Arcidiacono 18; Dwight Williams 9; Michael McGarry 2; Dave Baron 0; Richie Schafer 0. Total: 34.
Council Rock North: Matt McCloskey 6; Aaron Morgan 10; John Raymon 5; Arron Goodman 2; Charlie Anastasi 15; Jordan Chernin 0; Hunter Stevens 0. Total: 38.
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