Pennridge senior Max Wagner surpassed the 1,000-point milestone last week.
Wagner’s 1,000th point a culmination of memorable return to childhood home
By Jarrad Saffren
Late in the fourth quarter of Pennridge’s 55-46 win over Hatboro-Horsham Tuesday night, center Max Wagner held the ball near the three-point line facing the basket.
The already raucous crowd got louder and louder, understanding the moment. Wagner had 16 points in the game, bringing him to 999 for his career. One more basket, one more point, and he would reach 1,000 and etch his name into local history. Most area high schools hang a banner that lists career 1,000-point scorers in chronological order.
“The crowd was all yelling, ‘Dunk it,’” Wagner said. “Someone told me in school to do that for my 1,000th point too. That’s the dream, to do something cool for your 1,000th point.”
Wagner dribbled past his man and rose up for the slam. But Hatboro-Horsham center Clifton Moore, a lanky, long-armed, 6-foot-7 shot-blocker, rose to block Wagner from behind. Moore bumped Wagner off course and the ball lodged between the rim and the backboard.
Whistles blew from every corner of the court. Wagner would get two shots at the line.
“I was giggling, I knew this would be the 1,000th point I scored,” Wagner said.
He swished the free throw.
Pennridge coach Dean Behrens stopped the game as everyone stood and cheered. Wagner shook hands with Hatboro-Horsham players and bro-hugged his teammates and coaches. Then he walked over to the bench and hugged his mom, who kissed him on the cheek and whispered “Congratulations” in Wagner’s ear.
“I was like, ‘Wow. This only took a couple of years,’” Wagner said. “I was also like, ‘Wow I’m almost done with my high school career and I really don’t wanna be.’”
Wagner missed the next foul shot.
“We probably iced him,” Behrens said.
The senior finished with 17 points, reaching 1,000 on the dot. Wagner scored 18 and 12 in Pennridge’s last two regular season games, bringing him to 1,030 going into the District One Class AAAA playoffs.
Wagner, a 6-foot-8 big man with the shooting, passing, and dribbling skills of a guard, scored the first 714 points of his career for New Hope-Solebury, where he played his first three high school seasons.
“He was a real joy to coach,” New Hope-Solebury coach Rick Fedele said. “He never overshot. He always let the game come to him and nothing really rattled him.”
Growing up, Wagner was a guard, and more specifically an outside shooting specialist. As a freshman, Wagner was 6-feet tall and a “small, scrawny kid,” Fedele said.
Wagner played in four varsity games as a freshman, but showed flashes of what he would become. Toward the end of the season, Wagner scored nine points in the last two minutes of a game.
“He was a scorer,” Fedele said. “He was a kid who had a head for the basket.”
Between his freshman and sophomore seasons, Wagner grew four inches to 6-foot-4. As a sophomore, Wagner became New Hope’s starter at the four, averaging 10.5 points per game.
“With his growth, we tried to get him to learn to play more inside and outside. He started to get a knack for driving to the basket,” Fedele said. “He was always able to play facing the basket. For a kid that grew like he did, that gave him a big advantage. Big men couldn’t play him on the perimeter because of his perimeter game.”
Wagner sprouted four more inches before his junior season, making him taller than just about everybody. The growth spurt, plus the steady improvements to his inside game, led to a breakout season. Wagner posted 19.8 points and eight rebounds per game. “Guys had problems defending him,” Fedele said.
Against Christopher Dock, Wagner dropped a career-high 39, shooting 15-for-23 from the field and drilling six three-pointers.
Fedele was most impressed with Wagner’s efficiency.
“It was a quiet 39,” Fedele said. “A Dock player had 39 also but took 36 shots.”
The Dock game was not an anomaly. During his New Hope career, Wagner shot 48 percent from the field and 75 percent from the foul line.
As a junior, Wagner was New Hope’s leading scorer and rebounder and was named to the All-Bicentennial Athletic League First Team. But, despite Wagner’s personal success, New Hope was never quite as elite as its best player. The Lions were 12-10 in Wagner’s sophomore season, 2013-14, and 11-12 in his junior campaign, 2014-15.
Wagner wanted team success also, like his best friends were enjoying at Pennridge. Wagner grew up in Perkasie before moving to New Hope in middle school. He became friends with Dan Long and Stephen Lowry, Pennridge’s other two seniors, in Kindergarten. “
We are best friends,” Lowry said. “We are like brothers,” Wagner said.
Perkasie is 20 minutes up Route 29 from New Hope, and Wagner’s aunt still lived near Long and Lowry, so Wagner often visited on weekends. Last May, Lowry and Wagner were sitting on a park bench when Wagner floated the idea.
“He just wanted to enjoy his senior year back at Pennridge. His friends from when he was younger were all here,” Lowry said. “We fell in love with the whole idea.”
“A month later he told me he was coming back,” Lowry said. Wagner described the decision as a “family move” and said, “My dad’s work had a lot to do with it.”
At the end of May, Lowry called Behrens and said, “Hey I think the Wagners are buying a house and moving back to Perkasie,” Behrens said. “I said, ‘We’ll wait to see if that really happens.’”
A couple weeks later, Wagner enrolled for the 2015-16 school year through Pennridge’s registration office, and Behrens knew it was real.
Wagner played with Pennridge’s summer league team and showed up for open gyms in September. Behrens had not seen Wagner play since he was in eighth grade.
“I was like, ‘Wow that’s impressive,’” Behrens said. “He passed the ball extremely well.”
The Rams were two-time defending Suburban One League Continental Conference champions and reached states for the first time in school history in 2014-15. But many rivals and pundits expected a step back after the graduations of all-league guards Joe Molettiere and Zach Muredda, and glue guy Joe Unangst.
Central Bucks West, with eight seniors returning from a 17-7 team, was expected to win the league. Pennridge, though, still returned key players like Long (16 points per game in 2014-15), Lowry, and sixth man Ryan Cuthbert. Wagner was the missing piece, the big man, the second scoring option behind Long.
But the biggest advantage was that Wagner “knew the boys,” Behrens said. Wagner, Long, and Lowry had chemistry from years of playing pick-up, travel, CYO, and AAU ball together.
“It was a pretty easy transition (I’m) not gonna lie,” Wagner said.
From the jump, it was clear that Pennridge would jockey with West for first-place all season long.
West won the first meeting in December, when both teams were 4-0. But Wagner, nursing a jammed wrist, was unable to shoot from the outside and was “weak with his passes,” Behrens said. The Rams lost again four days later while Wagner was still injured. Then, once he healed, Pennridge won 15 of its last 16 games, taking the league title by a game.
Wagner averaged 13.7 points per game as the second option behind Long.
“A kid with his personality can adjust to a situation like that,” Fedele said. “He doesn’t need to get his shots per se. He just went with the flow of the game and that’s how he scored.”
Wagner is happy to give up shots to play on a great team. Pennridge, at 19-4, is the fifth seed in the district playoffs. The Rams play Central Bucks South in the first round Friday. “The sky is the limit,” Wagner said. “We are playing very well right now.”
The sky is the limit for Wagner too, as more and more colleges show interest. Behrens said the list includes “every Division III school under the sun.” Wagner is focusing on the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) schools. All 11 are recruiting Wagner, but East Stroudsburg, Kutztown, and West Chester are pushing the hardest. Wagner visited East Stroudsburg on Jan. 31. A Kutztown coach attended the Hatboro-Horsham game. And Behrens has sent film to West Chester.
“I’ll make my decision after the season is over but it’ll probably come down to those three,” Wagner said.
“Max is a college basketball player,” Behrens said. “He’ll be playing in college somewhere.”
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