City of Basketball Love

Tyler Sandora (@tyler_sandora)
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After losing to Perk Valley two months ago, North Penn wanted revenge. That win for Perk Valley was huge in district seeding, and North Penn wanted nothing more than to get another crack at them.

“We are not the same team, and we wanted a chance to beat the number one team in the district,” head coach John Conrad said.

Revenge is exactly what they got, coming out victorious on Tuesday night 64-46, defeating the 6A district’s top seed on the road. Both teams have already qualified for the 6A state tournament and are in the playback stage for seeding purposes after losing in the quarterfinals last Friday.

“We’ve been here before and they beat us last time,” said senior forward Ricky Johns. “We got a feel for their game, so once we got some momentum we needed to keep our foot on the medal.”

Johns, a West Virginia football signee, led the Knights in scoring with a game high 24 points, 14 of which came in the second half.

Without forward David Guiliani who was injured, North Penn got big contributions from future VMI quarterback Reece Udinksi, who added 10 points, and Lance Ford with nine.

“The more unselfish we are the more successful,” Johns said. “We need to share the ball in order to win.”

After trailing 24-23 at the break, North Penn came out firing in the second half, opening on a 9-0 run fueled by Johns and junior Chris Coleman. Whether it was 3-pointers, blocks at the rim, or containing Perk Valley’s best player, there was no solution to stopping Coleman in the early second half spurt.

“I knew I had to step my game up,” Coleman said. “I was feeling it, and I needed to give the team momentum.”

In addition to scoring 12 points and locking down Perk Valley star Justin Jaworski, Coleman was the recipient of the North Penn hard hat, a Knights tradition where Conrad picks a player who exemplifies tremendous hustle, even if he isn’t the team’s stat stuffer on that particular day.

“Hard hat goes to the guy who punches the time clock and goes to work,” Conrad said. “I thought Chris did that tonight, offensively and defensively.”

Coleman was able to proudly wear the hat into the lobby where his teammates greeted him.

North Penn knew from experience that Jaworski was one to keep an eye on. Back on December 28, the dual-sport athlete dropped 20 points on North Penn, and this time, the focus was certainly on him.

“We mainly put Chris on Jaworski, knowing that he is great player and can get hot at any time,” Conrad said. “We know we can’t stop him, but we needed to make him work for his shots.”

Jaworski scored a team-high 19 points, making a few tough 3s and going 4-of-5 from the line. But as a team, Perk Valley was 15-of-44 from the field, with only five total field goals in the second half.

Outscoring the host Vikings 19-5 in the third quarter, North Penn was able to spend the second half running its offense and making sure they got the best look possible.

“We really spent some time trying to wear them down with our offense in the second half,” Johns said. “We know that they really didn’t have much of a bench so we were able to tire them out.”

Perk Valley was able to trim the lead to 12 early in the fourth quarter, but North Penn’s marvelous free throw shooting (15-of-18) and ball movement ultimately ran out the clock in a hurry.

Senior Hogan Millheim was able to get his shot going in the first half for Perk Valley, accounting for nine of his team’s 24 points. He was shut down however in the subsequent quarters, only scoring two more to finish with 11.

With Perk Valley’s tallest player being the 6-3 Millheim, North Penn size and inside presence was able to handle the rebounding effort, as Udinski and Derek Heiserman combined for 12 of the team's 26 boards.

With the win, North Penn will host Conestoga, while Perk Valley hosts Penn Wood. Both games will be played on Friday night.

Coming off a win over the No.1 seed, North Penn is excited to start the state tournament.

“Everybody is confident,” Coleman said. “Anybody we put in will give us 110 percent.”