City of Basketball Love

Mitchell Gladstone (@mpgladstone13)
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GLEN MILLS — Garnet Valley had gone more than three years without a win against Lower Merion. Six games, six losses, including a 13-point defeat on the Aces’ home floor more than a month ago.

But with a Central League regular-season title for the taking, the Jaguars put that streak to bed and did so with a performance that will undoubtedly grab the attention of everyone in District 1.

Garnet Valley smashed Lower Merion 77-32 Thursday at home, starting out the night on fire and never cooling off in winnings its first-ever Central League regular-season crown. The Jags led by 16 at the end of the first quarter and extended their lead to 51-10 by halftime, knocking down nine of their 17 3-point attempts before intermission.

Four different Garnet Valley players put up double-figure points, led by senior Chris Coyne’s game-high 18, and although the Jaguars knew the crown was theirs almost from the get-go, there was still plenty to celebrate afterward.

“All day I was thinking about this game,” junior Carl Schaller said. “Franky, all week. I was pretty nervous going into the game, but we came out here and shot the lights out, so it’s a good feeling.”

You didn’t need to hear the celebration from inside the Garnet Valley locker to know what the win meant.

The smiles on the faces of Schaller and classmate Neel Beniwal said it all.

“This is huge,” Beniwal said of clinching first place. “Every single teacher we walked by in the halls, they were congratulating us and they’re so happy because we’ve never been good at basketball.”

When coach Mike Brown took over the program at the start of the 2012-13 season, the Jags were just coming off a 1-18 season in which they’d gone winless in the Central League.

Two years later, they reached the 10-win plateau. It then took three more seasons to get above .500 in league play.

Now, at 18-1 and 13-1 in Central League play, with a regular-season title in hand — not to mention the No. 2 spot in the latest District 1 Class 6A power rankings — there’s little arguing that the Jaguars deserve consideration as not just one of the best teams in the area but all of Pennsylvania.

“It’s a confidence boost for us,” Brown said. “They think the league looked at us, not as a fraud, but as a team that got hot and would come back to earth. So far, we haven’t.”

The Aces, who came into the night still fighting through the emotions following Sunday’s tragic helicopter crash that killed legendary alum Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Gianna, and seven others, didn’t look ready for Garnet Valley’s firepower.

Coyne, who hadn’t hit more than one triple in any single game this season, took advantage of a Lower Merion defense that chose to sag off him on the perimeter. The senior knocked down a pair of 3-pointers in the first four minutes and scored eight of the Jags’ first 15 points to force an early LM timeout.

Perhaps even more impressively, Garnet Valley extended its lead by not only scoring at will but nearly completely silencing the Aces’ offense — which had scored at least 40 points in every game this season entering the night.

Lower Merion shot 5-of-20 from the field in the opening half, missing on all 14 of its long-range tries.

“I didn’t even know they had 10 points until we came back out [from half,]” Beniwal said.

By that point, it was time to start the running clock, and the night’s final 16 minutes rushed away as the Aces never got within 30.

“The way a team shoots the ball is a night-to-night thing,” Brown said. “We didn’t miss many shots and they didn’t make many shots, in fairness. … I thought our defense was very, very good and it led to easy shots off fast breaks.”

Although the Jaguars’ raucous student section had calmed with the win all but salted away late, there was no question it gave Garnet Valley that extra lift early.

The home fans erupted on each made basket and it sucked the life from a Lower Merion team that has now lost four of its last five, dropping to 14-5 on the season and 10-4 in the league — still a game ahead of Penncrest, which fell to Strath Haven Thursday as well.

“Everyone was just energized,” Beniwal said. “Once Chris [Coyne] was hitting those threes, everyone was going crazy.”

And yet, there’s a feeling that the Jags still may not have yet hit their peak. Schaller wants to get to 20 wins, and Garnet Valley will need to win two of their last three to do so.

That’s not to mention the fact that it could very likely meet Lower Merion again in Central League playoffs two weeks from now, and there’s always the possibility of additional meetings in districts or states.

But the Jaguars aren’t certain about one thing: They aren’t looking ahead.

“The next day at practice, we know we’ve won but we just forget everything,” Beniwal said. “We just think of the next game.”

By Quarter
Garnet Valley:   24 | 27 | 8 | 18 | 77

Lower Merion:   8 | 2 | 12 | 10 | 32

Shooting
Garnet Valley: 28-45 FG, 14-24 3PT, 7-9 FT

Lower Merion: 11-32 FG, 5-19 3PT, 5-11 FT

Scoring
Garnet Valley: Coyne 18, Beniwal 16, Apostolopoulos 14, Schaller 9, Langan 8, Falcone 5, McKee 3, Jackowsky 2, Koehler 2

Lower Merion: Shippen 8, Simples 7, Wright 6, Lilley 4, Cook 3, Coyne 2, Gribbin 2