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Valley Forge puts Lower Moreland loss behind it, beats Church Farm

01/17/2018, 2:00am EST
By Matt Chandik

Matt Chandik (@MChandik26)
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It doesn’t take much time to realize that this Valley Forge Military Academy has the potential to be special.

Take a look at the latest Class AAA state polls, and you’ll find the Trojans slotted at No. 2 only behind four-time defending state champion Neumann-Goretti. If talent is your No. 1 measure of a team, Valley Forge can go toe-to-toe with almost anybody, led by senior point guard Arion Lewis and senior center and likely Division I recruit Abraham Deng, among others. If experience is more your thing, the Trojans can rely on the run they made to last year’s state quarterfinals and take solace in the fact that they brought back a wealth of that talent.

When Valley Forge lost early in the season to Abington, a legitimate 6A state title contender, it was cast aside as a learning experience at the hands of one of the state’s elites. The Trojans’ second loss, though, was shocking in that Valley Forge blew a 17-point lead en route to an overtime loss at the hands of Lower Moreland.

Losing to the now 11-3 Lions wasn’t something to be ashamed of, but it gnawed at the Trojans that they were in full control of the game before letting it slip away. Tuesday, they showed that they’ve already learned a little bit from the loss, building up a big early lead and never really allowing visiting Church Farm to rally in a 53-37 Bicentennial League rout.

Lewis led the charge with 18 points, four rebounds and three assists, while Will Colleran dumped in a dozen points to go with five rebounds and three assists and Marius Ntwari grabbed seven boards to go with 10 points.

John Ajak was Church Farm’s lone double-digit scorer with 11 points, Maximillian Scott added seven points and James McEvoy and Najeh Faris-Mahama both chipped in five points.

“We learned that we can’t take anybody easy,” Lewis said. “We’ve got to go at ‘em every time. We know not to look past any team when we play them, so just play hard.”

There was a little bit of a momentary lull for the Trojans (10-2) after they raced out to the sizeable halftime lead. To their credit, they always kept the Griffins at arm’s length, but the drop in intensity level was obvious to everyone on the home bench. While Valley Forge got the win, letting its foot off the gas isn’t the habit it wants to be developing, particularly not with an eye on a deep postseason run.

“It’s concerning, but it’s not a major issue,” Colleran said. “We came out in the second half coasting a little bit, but that’s something that we work on in practice. We’ve had a couple games where we’re up by 20, then it’s all of a sudden, it’s a 10 and then seven-point game. That’s something we’re working on every day in practice.”

And as for that loss to Lower Moreland?

“I’m not thinking about it now,” said Colleran, whose reaction to the question may have betrayed his words. “We’re still 10-2, one of the best teams in the state. We’re not worried about it. We’re past that. We learned and we’re fixing everything. We were doing everything too fast. Sometimes, we go a thousand miles an hour when we just need to take it back and slow it down a little bit. We worked on different tempos and getting our minds back.”

It’s better to make those mistakes and learn those lessons in January rather than March, and the loss gave the Trojans a wake-up call. If they want to make a run in the postseason and have the chance to knock the Saints off their lofty perch, the Trojans know that they’ll have to be able to not blink when chaos happens.

“The word that we focus on is composure,” Valley Forge coach Francis Bowe said. “We need to keep it going. I think sometimes, we tend to fall asleep a little bit, and we get comfortable, and we can’t. We have to be on the attack 24/7. Hopefully, it’s going to snap on soon. It stung that we lost, but they understood that it’s time to get back down to business and it’s only one game. We’ve learned from that mistake and hopefully, we can continue to build off of it.”

Because, as Bowe’s players are quick to point out, they’ve got lofty goals.

“We’ve still got work to do,” Lewis said. “Our goal is to win a state championship, so we’ve got a lot of work to do to get to where we want to be.”


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