City of Basketball Love

Daniel Newhart (@danny_newhart)
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Garnet Valley head coach Michael Brown entered his team’s locker room at halftime, preparing to speak to his team that had already fallen behind by double digits to Central League opponent Lower Merion.

After a first half in which his team hurt itself with turnovers, missed shots and a lack of flow offensively, Brown could have chosen to fire his team up with a strong Bob Knight-esque pep talk. However, the message he sent the Jaguars at the half contained some good news.

“I told them the first half could not have been worse, the good news was we were only down 10 points to a good team,” Brown said. “We did things that were not characteristic of us; turned the ball over constantly, took poor shots, the first half was a disaster.”

An inspired effort ensued from Garnet Valley, however the Jaguars’ comeback effort ended up falling short as the Aces of Lower Merion took the game by a score of 64-58.

Lower Merion big man Jeremy Horn led all scorers with 24 points, 18 of which came in the opening half. Junior guard Noah Fennell contributed 18 points, 12 coming in the second half to help the Aces (13-4, 9-2 Central) secure the victory.

Senior Andrew Louden led the way in the scoring department for Garnet Valley (9-7, 5-7) with 17, 14 of those coming in the opening half.

Lower Merion’s game plan early on was apparent: get the ball to the 6-foot-8 Horn and let him punish the much smaller Garnet Valley defenders. Horn did just that, to the tune of six straight points (all in the paint) to help the Aces to a 6-0 lead less than two minutes in.

The remainder of the first half saw more of the same, with Horn overpowering the Jaguars smaller and shorter defenders with an array of post moves and finishes.

“To their credit they force-fed him the ball,” Brown said of Lower Merion. “Initially we were in zone but we weren’t keeping an eye on him; he’s a big kid, and they did a nice job getting him the ball. We did a poor job preventing him from getting the ball, simple as that.”

Louden almost single-handedly kept his team in the ballgame in the first half, scoring more than half of his team’s 23 points.

At the half the Aces held a 33-23 advantage, opening a lead as large as 14 and threatening to pull away early in the third. However a 15-6 run, highlighted by three three-pointers from GV’s Carl Tienabeso brought the Jaguars within 43-40.

As Garnet Valley was having more success setting its focus on Horn defensively in the second half, Lower Merion switched to a five-guard lineup. The junior Fennell, who scored just six points in the first half seized the opportunity with Horn on the bench and  found himself open on the perimeter with better looks at the basket.

Fennell made sure the Ace’s lead stayed safe, hitting a few mid range jumpers and finishing a key leak out and-one layup just over a minute into the fourth quarter after the Ace’s lead had been cut to 43-40. Fennell would convert the free throw to stretch the lead back to six, and Lower Merion would not trail afterward.

“They were pushing the ball in transition really fast and really well, and we wanted to keep their perimeter guys in check,” Fennell said. “[At halftime] my coaches just told me I needed to have better shot selection. I hit two threes, but I was missing some shots. They were kind of just telling me I needed to use better shot selection and kind of get the ball to the rack a little."

The win keeps Lower Merion right right behind Ridley (11-0) and Strath Haven (10-2) and ahead of Conestoga (8-4) in the Central League standings, with games still play against all three in the last few weeks of the regular season.