City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Strath Haven junior Jahmeir Springfield has one word to sum up the Panthers’ basketball prognosis last season.

Bleak.

That’s how it felt being part of a team that went 4-19 overall, including a 2-14 record in Central League play. Over a two-year span, a once-proud program won a total of six games.

Then head coach Dave McFadden was hired in the offseason to replace Tom Dougherty, and over the last few months that outlook has changed tremendously. A strong offseason in events like the Haverford Shootout got the Panthers thinking that maybe they were in for a decent year.

When the season began, something strange happened. They started winning.

“When we were 2-0, we were like, ‘look, we set our goal for 13 wins’ (and) we changed our goals,” said Springfield, a 5-foot-10 junior guard and the team's starting point guard. “We’re not just looking to be a mediocre team anymore.

By December, it was clear that Strath Haven was no flash in the pan, when the Panthers took down one of the top programs in the league of late, Conestoga. That got their record to 8-2, and began a string of nine wins in a row that stretched all the way up to this week.

“At first we just took baby steps and we said let’s be top-four in our conference,” senior guard Alex Ischiropoulos said. “And then once we were top-four, we said let’s make a run at this, why not?”

Both Ischiropoulos and Springfield gave a lot of credit to McFadden, a 31-year-old Upper Darby grad who spent the last three years as an assistant at Marple-Newtown. He’s certainly familiar with the Central League--and Strath Haven’s potential, as he played on Upper Darby’s squad the last time that Haven won a league title, in 2003.

What he found, he said, upon taking control of the program in the spring was a team that “has talent...just needs somebody to push them and remind them that they have some talent and can win.”

Strath Haven couldn’t come up with a win in one of its biggest games in a few years, however, losing 69-61 in overtime to Lower Merion in a wild game on Tuesday night to snap the streak.

The postseason implications for the game, aside from potential District seeding impact, were certainly not small.

“It was a big game for a lot of different reasons and a game that we took very seriously and we feel happy to have won it,” Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer said.

“The standings outside of the undefeated Ridley are very tight and if nobody beats Ridley, only three teams are going (to the Central League tournament),” he continued. “This game had big implications on the computer for for District seeding...it was a very important game for both ballclubs.”

If Ridley (13-0) goes untouched through the rest of the Central League slate, that gives Mike Snyder’s group a pass through the semifinals and right to the conference final--meaning only the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds will meet on Feb. 6 for the right to play the Green Raiders.

The win moved the Aces (14-4, 10-3) a half-game back of Strath Haven for second with three games left on their schedule, including a shot against Ridley at home on Feb. 2; Ridley took the earlier matchup, winning 61-40 on its home court Jan. 8.

With Conestoga (9-3) lurking just behind, Lower Merion’s ability to evade a fourth loss in league play was crucial for the Aces. A loss by either LM or Haven means the Pioneers could shoot past and grab that third spot.

But the Panthers (15-4, 11-3 Central) are still looking good for the program’s first trip to the district tournament since 2013, a bid all but locked up with only two weeks of the regular season left to play.

And they’re taking momentum out of the losing effort, thanks to a 10-point, third-quarter comeback to force overtime against a program that’s been one of area’s most visible since Kobe Bryant played there 20 years back.

“Going to be big for this team going forward...to know that we can hang with (LM) is great,” McFadden said. “We’re going to be in the playoffs, hopefully we’ll get to see them again and show them what we have again.”

Springfield (13 points) came up with five steals to help his team climb from down 10 in the third quarter into a 50-50 tie midway through the fourth. His final pickpocket of the game looked like it might win it, a swipe-and-steal with 17 seconds left in the fourth quarter to put his team up one.

LM junior guard Terrell Jones had an opportunity to end it in regulation with two foul shots, but he missed the second, and an extra four minutes was needed.

Jones, a 6-4 wing guard, didn’t suffer miss in the extra session, hitting on six attempts from the line for the last of his game-high 20 points. Jeremy Horn added 16 and six boards, Noah Fennell 14 and K.J. Helton had 10 for the Aces, who outscored the Panthers 12-4 in the extra session.

“They hit some big shots, they’ve been in these situations before and they’ve won games,” McFadden said. “They know how to do it and we’re still learning how to do it.”

Haven was led by the 15 points of junior forward John Harrar, one of three returning starters from last year along with Ischiropoulos, a 6-1 wing guard recently committed to D-III Elmira (N.Y.), and JayVon Green-Springfield, Jahmeir’s older brother; the 5-11 senior guard added eight as the only member of the starting five not in double figures.

And no, they’re not the favorites to win the Central League or the district tournament, though they definitely have a chance to be one of the 10 teams from District 1 AAAA to earn a state bid; that would be their first since 2008-09.

Just expect them to give it their best shot.

“We’re fighters, definitely,” Springfield said. “We don’t back down from anything.”