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Ramos, West Chester East qualify for state tournament

02/25/2022, 11:45pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)

WEST CHESTER — The morning ahead of West Chester East’s do-or-die game against Council Rock North, East’s Jose Ramos texted head coach Tom Durant

“Believe in me tonight,” the junior guard said.

“I like it,” the coach responded. “Let’s go.”


Jose Ramos (above) had a game-high 19 points as West Chester East extended its season. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

When nighttime rolled around, Ramos and the Vikings gave Durant plenty to believe in. Facing the end of the road, with a berth in the state playoffs — and a multi-game extension of the season — on the line, Ramos stepped up with 19 points as seventh-seeded East battled from behind to top No. 15 seed CR North, 56-51 in a District 1 6A playback game.

“I’m saying to my team, we’ve got to turn it up, I’m not trying to go home,” Ramos said. “We had to step it up; we couldn’t win a district championship, but we had to step it up to get into the state playoffs, and we did it.”

Even though a district title was off the table for both teams due to second-round (Round of 16) losses Tuesday, East (19-7) and North (17-9) had plenty to play for Friday night. With 12 qualifiers out of the district making it to the state bracket, the first game in the playback bracket also served as a state qualifier, Friday night’s four winners — East, Haverford, Downingtown West and Penn Wood — all punching a bid to the PIAA bracket in a couple weeks. 

But before that, there’s still two games of seeding rounds to play, meaning East’s win bought the Vikings three additional games in the 2021-22 season. That’s a big deal for a program without a senior in the rotation, which needs all the experience it can get for its long-term plans.

“Oh this is huge, huge,” Durant said. “Get a state taste, every game’s meaningful.

“We said it to the team, everybody’s saying the same thing, if you want to play three more games guaranteed and go to the states, where you’re the top 32 in the state — for 6A, top 32 in the state’s pretty damn good, it really is.”

The full house at East got treated to an entertaining 75 minutes of hoops, both teams playing up to the moment from start to finish. West Chester East jumped out to an 11-2 lead, but most of the first half went in the direction of Council Rock North, which went into the break up 30-25 after Jack Blum banked in a half-court 3-pointer to send the teams into the locker rooms.

That advantage reached eight multiple times in the third quarter, last coming at 43-35 with just under a minute remaining in the frame. A 3-pointer by East sophomore wing Josh Sherlock gave the Vikings some momentum going into the fourth, and it never stopped.

Ramos, who hit his first five shots on the evening and single-handedly kept East in it during the third quarter with a pair of 3-pointers and a layup, made it a three-point game with a bucket just inside the start of the fourth quarter, and the sizeable East student section grew louder with each successive possession. 

When KJ Cochran connected from the midrange with 4:47 left, it was a 45-43 game; a few possessions later, the score was 47-45, when Ryan Price hit the biggest shot of the night. The sophomore’s 3-pointer from straightaway off a Sherlock feed put East back on top with 2:23 to play, the final lead change of the evening.

“I saw Sherlock drive, I knew I was open, so I was waiting for him to pass it,” the sophomore guard said. “I knew right when I got it, I was draining it, I knew it would be a big one to make. Yeah, it felt good.”

A North attack that had played so well together all night, racking up 12 assists on 19 buckets, went cold, getting only one foul shot in the final three minutes until Bernie Parent buried a 3-pointer to cut a six-point gap to 54-51 with 3.9 seconds to play. Jack Kushner got behind the North defense on the final inbounds play, and found Ramos for a layup just as the buzzer sounded. 

Once the refs and North had left the court, the East students joined their team on it.

“Give credit to the sixth man, the fans were awesome,” Durant said. “We had like 300+ kids — it looked like, anyways.”

“The week since we lost to Abington, I felt bad because we let everybody down,” Ramos said. “Against Abington, our student section was crazy, we’ve never seen that before, it was a lot of people. Just to see them come out again, believe in us, and we came out with a ‘W’ this time, it made me feel good.”


Jack Kushner (above) had 13 points and five assists in East's win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Kushner, a 6-2 junior wing and the only holdover left from East’s run to the District 1 5A title two years ago, joined Ramos in double digits with 13 points, dishing out five assists. Cochran, one of the area’s most talented freshmen, added 10 points, including a pair of first-quarter 3-pointers. Price, chased off the 3-point arc all night long, made his only two attempts from deep for six points. 

North got 17 points from junior wing Adam Mahtat, 14 and seven rebounds from Blum — who was 6-of-6 from the floor — plus 13 from Parent, the grandson of the Flyers legend who also had four assists in his final high school game. 

“I think we had some opportunities, we just didn’t convert,” North coach Jesse Krasna said. “I thought our ball movement was really good the whole game, but we went a little cold in the fourth quarter, and it happens sometimes. 

“I’m really proud of our kids, they battled tonight like they have all year long. I’m going to miss our four seniors, because they really led our team all year and were a big part of getting us to this point.”

West Chester East’s next foe will be a familiar one: district No. 6 seed Downingtown West, who the Vikings beat 55-48 in the Ches-Mont League championship game on Feb. 15; the Whippets took two regular-season meetings from the pair, 79-61 on Jan. 11 and 45-38 on Feb. 3. 

Two more wins puts them into the state bracket as the ninth seed out of District 1, which would mean a matchup against either the District 2 or District 4 champs in the first round. It’s all experience that’ll pay dividends next year, when the Vikings will be down in the 5A classification, a veteran group ready to make noise once again. 

“We definitely do have a lot of [returners], mostly everybody’s coming back next year, so (we’re) definitely looking forward to next year,” Price said, “but we’re more focused now on trying to get further into states, just make our season last as long as possible.”

By Quarter
WC East:  11  |  14  |  13  |  18  ||  56
CR North: 14  |  16  |  13  |   8   ||  51

Shooting
WC East: 22-40 FG (8-15 3PT), 4-7 FT
CR North: 19-36 FG (6-14 3PT), 7-11 FT

Scorers
WC East: Jose Ramos 19, Jack Kushner 13, KJ Cochran 10, Ryan Price 6, Josh Sherlock 5, Jack Gallagher 2, Korey Puchalla 1

CR North: Adam Mahtat 17, Jack Blum 14, Bernie Parent 13, Ryan Burkett 5, Logan Saifer 2


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