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Davis leads Hatboro-Horsham past Upper Moreland

01/17/2017, 11:00pm EST
By Will Slover

Will Slover (@WillSlover31)
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With under a minute left in the first quarter, Hatboro-Horsham had a twelve point lead over Upper Moreland and it looked like the Hatters were going to run away with the game and win their sixth Suburban One contest of the season without any issues.

Then, after a heave at the buzzer from Upper Moreland’s Christian O’Donnell cut the lead to nine heading into the second quarter and Upper Moreland started the frame by going 6-of-7 from the field and the next thing Hatboro-Horsham knew, its lead was down to two points with just over two minutes remaining in the half.

“In four of our losses so far, we’ve had 16 point leads and have lost those games,” Hatboro-Horsham head coach Ed Enoch said. “Teams made that same run that Upper Moreland made at us tonight and they overtook us and beat us.”

Hatboro-Horsham made sure to not let this lead slip away, though, as the Hatters started off the second half with a backdoor alley-oop to senior Jay Davis that swung the game back into Hatboro-Horsham’s favor and its lead was back to double digits before the end of the third frame.

Building on its third quarter run, Hatboro-Horsham held on to beat Upper Moreland by a score of 59-47 to improve to 6-3 in Suburban One League action.

“I was proud of how we hung in there,” Enoch said. “Tonight I was proud of how we put a stop to it and came back and got big buckets and got stops and held on.”

After allowing 28 points in the first half, the Hatters honed in on defense and shut down Upper Moreland in the second half, allowing the Golden Bears to score just 19 points and holding them to 8-of-25 (.320) shooting from the field after halftime.

“We just tightened things up a little bit,” Enoch said. “I thought we cleaned things up and played really well in the second half defensively.”

Highlighting Upper Moreland’s second half was Davis, the 6-foot-4 senior, who scored 11 points in the fourth quarter alone.

“In the fourth quarter, I felt like no one could touch me,” Davis said. “I saw a gap and I just took it. Every bucket, I just took it.”

Although his 11-point fourth quarter was a huge reason why his Hatters held onto their lead, Davis was also a huge reason why they had the lead in the first place as the senior guard cashed in for a game-high 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting.

“He was very good,” Enoch said. “He’s a great athlete and tremendous basketball talent. He doesn’t need a lot of space, he can get through people and get right to the rim.”

After Hatboro-Horsham’s early struggles to hold onto leads, Davis was thrilled to be a crucial part in his team’s winning effort.

“I was hype for this game,” Davis said. “It was the talk of the school, social media, there was a lot of trash talk. I felt like I needed to come out here and do my thing.”

Aiding Davis’ effort for Hatboro-Horsham was senior big man Clifton Moore. The 6-foot-10 Moore, who is committed to play for Tom Crean at Indiana University next season, finished with 19 points and seven rebounds in the win.

For Upper Moreland, it was a balanced scoring effort led by senior Delaware Valley University commit Damian Washington, who finished with 11 points. Coming up not too far behind him was the trio of Ryan Coyle, Brett Brossman and Shane Stone, who all finished with 10 points.

Hatboro-Horsham will look to build on the win as it takes on Quakertown on Friday while Upper Moreland will look to avenge the loss in a contest with Harry Truman, which also takes place on Friday.

With its history of not having great success in holding onto leads, seeing his team being able to hold onto a lead and close out a hard fought contest was a relief for the wiry guard.

“We’ve been in a lot of close games where we’ve been ahead and we feel like we let it go,” Davis said. “This was a little scary but we finally came together and just played like a team and we did the right thing.”


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