City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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GLEN MILLS — When Garnet Valley graduated Carl Schaller and the rest of its talented 2020 class, it seemed obvious that Max Koehler was going to score a lot of points in a Jaguars uniform over the next two years. The 6-foot-2 guard had already been a starter as a sophomore, and looked ready to take on the role that Schaller and a few others had held before him in Mike Brown’s offense, which benefited from a score-first lead guard who wasn’t shy about getting shots up.

Now a senior, Koehler’s role isn’t quite the same as Schaller’s, or Austin Laughlin, or Brandon Starr; instead, though he’s got the ball in his hands, he’s playing the role of facilitator. Thanks to the emergence of senior wing Logan McKee and sophomore shooting guard Jake Sniras, Koehler’s turned into Garnet Valley’s point guard — and he’s got no problem with that whatsoever.

“There are guys that want to shoot the basketball every time, guys that want to get up shots, who want to get their points,” he said. “I just want to win. I love being a point guard, I love facilitating for the rest of the guys [...] whatever I have to do to help the team win.”

In a non-league home game against Unionville on Tuesday night, Koehler showed his value as Garnet’s table-setter, setting the tone as McKee and Sniras combined for 39 points in a 67-57 win.

Koehler chipped in 11 points, nine of which came in the first half, while going 5-of-9 from the floor in the win. The York College (Pa.) commit really made his mark with his passing, however, dishing out seven assists while Sniras (23 points) and McKee (16) combined for nearly 60% of the Jaguars’ scoring.

He’s an indispensable part of Garnet’s offense, not coming off the floor save for rare occurrences, a guard who can get into the lane and get the defense moving, even if he’s not the one taking the shot or getting the assist.

“It’s funny because for our purposes, we still would like him to take a lot of shots, because he’s a good offensive player,” Brown said, “but asking him to play the point and do that, it’s just overbearing at times — and often guard the other team’s best player. We ask a whole lot of him. He’s our primary, he’s like our [number] one, two and three ball-handler.”

Koehler’s scoring touch showed early, two tough left-handed layups part of a crucial game-opening 18-5 spurt for Garnet Valley, which led from beginning to end on its home court to improve to 2-0. Aside from the opening five minutes and 30 seconds, Unionville (2-1) actually outscored its hosts 52-49, but that opening hole was too big to fully climb out of.

The Longhorns got back in it by bombing away from 3-point range, going 13-of-34 (38.2%) from deep over the course of the game, taking only 12 shots from inside the arc. Junior wing Charlie Kammeier was 5-of-6 from beyond the arc for his team-high 15 points, while Robbie Logan (3 3’s, 12 points) and Ryan Brown (one triple, 12 points) joined him in double figures.

“I think overall, it’s hard to trade 2’s for 3’s,” Brown said. “We’re not — I shouldn’t give away, but we’re not a big 3-point shooting team. They are, and we would score two twice, they would score 3 and it’s only a one-point difference. It’s hard, it’s difficult, when you play a team who plays like that.”

Six first-half triples helped the Longhorns pull to within seven points at halftime, and they got as close as three points in the fourth quarter and within five on several other occasions. But each time they did so, Garnet Valley would find the response, whether that was in the form of a McKee mid-range jumper or a Sniras 3-pointer, off one of many open looks created by Koehler and senior forward Ryan Faccenda (8 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists).

“We just trust each other,” Koehler said. “There were so many times [last year] we played from down, we played from behind, and we muscled our way back [...] we learned a lot from that. We can’t play scared and we’ve got to take care of the ball and we’ve got to rebound and do all the things [that] coach tells us that we have to do.”

The final push was ended with help from Brady Krautzel, whose 3-pointer off a feed from Faccenda made it 53-45 with 3:45 left; Koehler and McKee buckets made it 59-50 with 2:12 remaining, ending any final thoughts of a comeback. 

Sniras, who started all freshman year, finished with 23 points on 8-of-15 shooting, going 2-of-5 from deep and 5-of-6 from the foul line. Though he’s still encouraged to get his own, Sniras showed better understanding of what was and wasn’t a good shot from a year ago, when he could be a little trigger-happy in his first season of varsity hoops.

“He’s not the young kid that he was last year,” Brown said. “I mean, how many freshmen played varsity on a pretty good team? A team that wins 18 games? We asked a lot of him but he’s like a sophomore veteran, he’s an old sophomore, if you will, because of all the games he’s played.”

Koehler committed to York back in October, picking Matt Hunter’s program over overtures from Immaculata, Hood (Md.) and Marymount (Va.). He’s the latest in a string of Garnet players to head off to play college ball, following Schaller (Gettysburg), Laughlin (Kutztown), Greg Vlassopolous (Immaculata) and Starr (USciences), now an assistant on the Garnet bench. 

A planned sport management major, it was a visit to the school’s campus, meeting the team and sitting in on a class, that convinced Koehler he’d found his spot.

“When I stepped on campus with coach [Matt] Hunter and [assistant] coach [Jared] Wagner, I got a feeling,” he said. “I knew my preference was to commit before the season, but I wasn’t really thinking about it all that much, and York just came along and it (felt like) home.

“(It’s) definitely a weight off my shoulders…last year, there were coaches reaching out and stuff, and I had to think about that as well, keep that in the back of my mind. Now (I’m) just here playing basketball with my buddies and winning games.”

By Quarter
Garnet Valley:  25  |   6   |  16  |  20  ||  67
Unionville:        14  |  10  |  15  |  18  ||  57

Shooting
Garnet Valley: 25-50 FG (4-13 3PT), 13-19 FT
Unionville: 18-46 FG (13-34 3PT), 8-15 FT

Scoring
Garnet Valley: Sniras 23, McKee 16, Koehler 11, Faccenda 8, J. Krautzel 6, B. Krautzel 3
Unionville: Kammeier 15, Brown 12, Logan 12, Anderson 6, Diehl 5, Brenner 4, Robbins 3