City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
—

With his Green Raiders down five points headed into the third quarter against Perkiomen Valley, Ridley coach Mike Snyder told his team they needed to turn up the aggression.

The Vikings were controlling the pace and thus the entire feel of the District 1 AAAA second-round matchup. After a slow start, they were putting a serious scare into the Central League champions with a state tournament berth on the line.

“There was a lot of concern,” Snyder said. “We seem to play in runs, we go in a little slump and then we’ll get a run…it’s been like that the whole year. I was just hoping we had another run in us and we could get some stops.”

Entering the final quarter of play, Ridley hadn’t had a single attempt from the foul line. The plan was for senior guard Brett Foster to attack the rim at every opportunity to get Perk Valley in foul trouble, while turning up the pressure at the other end of the floor to disrupt a patient Viking attack.

Instead, it was another senior, Julian Wing, who wound up at the foul line—10 times, to be exact, all in the final minute. And the versatile 6-1 forward hit all of them, helping the Green Raiders to a 45-31 win.

“I hadn’t been to the foul line the whole game. I just wanted to get to the foul line, be confident, hit foul shots,” said Wing, who finished with a game-high 21 points and nine rebounds. “I’ve been working on it because last game I was 0-for-5 in the last quarter and 7-for-7 in the second half, so I just wanted to come into practice, shoot foul shots and make them in the game.”

It was 25-20 Perkiomen Valley after a third quarter that went 12-5 in favor of the Vikings, whose affinity for taking the air out of the ball was on display in a final possession of the period that lasted nearly 100 seconds.

So Snyder told his team to turn up the pressure, and the Green Raiders responded by forcing six turnovers in the final eight minutes, helped out by taking three charges in the fourth quarter alone.

The final six minutes of the game were 21-3 in Ridley’s favor, as Wing had 15 points in the fourth quarter.

“We had to start being a little more aggressive because we were down and they were going to run some clock so I said we had to turn it up and be a little more aggressive,” Snyder said. “Luckliy players were able to turn it up, get a couple of loose balls, stay aggressive. I think they stepped up at the right time defensively.”

The win qualifies No. 4 seed Ridley for the state tournament for the second consecutive season, guaranteeing Snyder’s squad one of the top eight seeds to come out of District 1’s 10 bids into the 32-team PIAA bracket.

No. 20 Perkiomen Valley, meanwhile, enters the play-back bracket with three of the top five seeds in the district: No. 1 Coatesville, No. 3 Downingtown West and No. 5 Pennridge all lost on Tuesday. The Vikings will have to travel to the fifth-seeded Rams on Friday to keep their season (and hopes of a first state tournament appearance) alive.

“Twenty-five to twenty at the end of the third, that’s our game and we have to finish,” Vikings coach Mike Poysden said. “But I’m proud of the way we came into a tough place to play and I thought we handled it well.”

~~~

Tuesday's District 1 AAAA Results
No. 17 CB East 49, No. 1 Coatesville 43
No. 9 Chester 56, No. 25 Hatboro-Horsham 34 (Game story)
No. 4 Ridley 45, No. 20 Perkiomen Valley 31 (Game story)
No. 12 Spring-Ford 61, No. 5 Pennridge 58 (Game story)
No. 2 Plymouth Whitemarsh 60, No. 18 Academy Park 56
No. 7 CB West 42, No. 10 Phoenixville 30 (Game story)
No. 14 Conestoga 57, No. 3 Downingtown West 51 (Game story)
No. 11 Lower Merion 64, No. 27 Upper Dublin 48

Friday's District 1 AAAA Schedule
Quarterfinals
No. 17 CB East @ No. 9 Chester
No. 12 Spring-Ford @ No. 4 Ridley
No. 7 CB West @ No. 2 Plymouth Whitemarsh
No. 14 Conestoga @ No. 11 Lower Merion

Play-Backs
No. 25. Hatboro-Horsham @ No. 1 Coatesville
No. 20 Perkiomen Valley @ No. 5 Pennridge
No. 18 Academy Park @ No. 10 Phoenixville
No. 27 Upper Dublin @ No. 3 Downingtown West

Justin Jaworski, the Vikings’ star junior guard and two-sport athlete, led his team with 12 points, even as the 5-foot-11 guard was the clear focal point of a tough Ridley defense.

Foster, an East Stroudsburg commit, finished with eight points but his most important contribution was staying on Jaworski the vast majority of the game, with Bollinger and Liam Thompson chipping in as well.

“We knew he could score from all over the place, he’s got a jumper, little different pull-ups from the inside so he keeps you off balance,” Snyder said. “We always had a player and a half on him all game, there was always one guy and we had another over there helping; that certainly was our game plan to keep a player and a half on him, try and keep him under 15.”

After a deep 3-pointer by Jaworski with six minutes left made it 28-24 in the Vikings’ favor, Wing brought his team within a point with a triple at the five-minute mark, and followed that up with a dish to junior guard Damir Fleming that put Ridley up a point. Wing then made it a three-point lead with a pair of foul shots--Ridley’s first of the game--and Ryan Bollinger followed with a corner triple that made it 34-28 with three minutes remaining.

The Vikings’ Sean Moriarty cut the deficit in half with a triple of his own, but Bollinger answered right back with another corner triple for the final of his 14 points.

Wing sealed it with eight more shots from the foul line over the last 120 seconds, the experience of a District 1 Final Four run a year ago and three state appearances in four years kicking in at the right time.

“We feel confident because we know how to do it,” Wing said. “For me, Brett and Ryan we’ve done it for four years, we know how to keep our emotion in check and just play ball.”