City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Back in January, it looked like the wheels were falling off the Penncrest wagon.

After ripping off a dozen straight wins following two season-opening losses, Mike Doyle’s Lions were riding high in the Central League. Then came four consecutive defeats: at Conestoga and Strath Haven, at home against Harriton and Lower Merion, in that order.

Suddenly, Penncrest went from a team that was in the running to finish the regular season undefeated and earn a berth straight into the league’s championship game to one that was starting to slide towards missing the four-team Central playoffs entirely.

It was a difficult stretch on the schedule, to be sure, but something wasn’t quite right in the Lions’ den.

“I just think that we lost a little bit of chemistry between each other, it wasn’t really anything big,” junior guard Tyler Norwood said. “I think that the Conestoga game got some people a little shaken up.”

“The low point, the soul-searching moment was giving up 69 points to Harriton,” Doyle said, referencing the third of those four, a 69-63 loss to the Rams on Jan. 27. “We just had to say ‘that’s not us,’ we had to get back and guard and that’s what we’ve done all year.”

No team since has scored more than 60 on Penncrest, which has won six of its last seven games and now finds itself playing in the District 1 5A Championship game on Saturday.

The No. 3 seed in the tournament, the Lions (19-7) will take on No. 8 Upper Merion (16-9) at the Pavilion on Villanova University’s campus, with tipoff scheduled for 2 PM.

Both are chasing their first district titles in some time; Penncrest last won in 1980, Upper Merion in 1993. They’ve each benefitted from the PIAA’s switch from four classifications to six, which was agreed open in 2015 but went into effect this year.

Each made the AAAA playoffs last year, but lost in the first round.

“My thought early on was ‘why have they done this,’” Doyle said, but he’s come around. “They’ve done this because at Penncrest on Thursday there was 500 kids in line wrapped around the school buying tickets [for the semifinals]. What this has created as a trickle-down effect is immeasurable. The schools are excited, it’s a positive influence for the kids, for the fans, and it’s just great.”

Penncrest’s defense, led by terrific efforts from senior Manny Ruffin and junior Chris Mills, held No. 2 Great Valley to just 33 points in the semifinals. The Lions especially clamped down in the fourth quarter, holding the Patriots to just five points, including a solitary field goal that came in the final 30 seconds of the contest.

“It feels great [to be in the championship],” said Norwood, who had 21 points in the semifinal win, right around his season average. “I give a lot of credit to coach, he puts us in positions to win games and whatever’s on the board, whatever he puts on the board, we put on the court.”

Senior forward Mike Mallon (6-3) also had a strong semifinal outing with 11 points and eight rebounds, five on the offensive end.

Though the seeds would suggest Penncrest is the favorite heading into the gym typically occupied by the defending national championship, Upper Merion’s resume is deceiving. The Vikings spent a good portion of the regular season without star forward Matt Faw, a 6-8 big man with a terrific outside shot who’s headed to Holy Cross in the fall.

Faw broke his foot in December and sat out all the way through January, making his return just in time to get one game of regular-season action before Upper Merion began its playoff push with a home game against Strath Haven in the first round. After dispatching the Panthers 55-45, they really opened eyes with a 53-50 win at top seed Chester in the semifinals.

“I think we’re pretty confident and coach [Jason Quenzer] stresses that we deserve to be where we are,” senior forward Ethan Miller said, “but Penncrest also deserves to be where they are, so we can’t take them lightly. We just have to be confident and focused when we go and play against them and know that if we play our game we should end up on top.”

Miller, a 6-6 forward, teams with Faw and fellow 6-6 senior Anthony Sheppard to form one of the more imposing frontcourts around, as well as the Vikings’ clear strength.

“It’s going to be literally and figuratively a tall task, (Faw and Miller) are extremely talented,” Doyle said. “We’re going to look to try to pack it in a little bit and then make them work for their shots.”

Senior guards Aiden Newell and Joe Breece start in the backcourt for Quenzer, who brings 3-point specialist Andrew Persaud, another senior, for scoring punch off the bench.

The VIkings struggled in the first half of their semifinal against a similarly cold-shooting Bishop Shanahan, leading just 11-10 after two quarters.

But once they got the inside game working -- Miller had eight points in the third quarter alone and a team-high 15 for the game -- the offense started to click and they pulled away for a 45-30 win.

Don’t look for Upper Merion to wait so long to get the ball to the blocks this time.

“We always knew that our inside game is our strongest asset,” Miller said, “so getting into me and Matt and Shep, whoever has the mismatch, that should create a lot more opportunities.”