City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
—

ROYERSFORD — The District 1 6A boys’ semifinal between Spring-Ford and Downingtown West on Tuesday night was the perfect demonstration of the most basic tenet of basketball: some nights shots go in, and some nights they don’t.

The top-seeded Rams and fifth-seeded Whippets both played hard, limited turnovers, moved the ball, defended well, everything their coaches were hoping for as both programs were aiming for their first-ever district title game appearance. 

Spring-Ford’s shots went in. Downingtown West’s didn’t. And so the hosts advanced to play this Saturday at Temple University’s spacious Liacouras Center, 66-52, on the backs of a stellar outing by E.J. Campbell.

A 6-foot-2 junior guard, Campbell was just about perfect in the win — certainly shooting the ball, where he was 8-of-8 from the fall, 3-of-3 from the 3-point arc, and 8-of-8 from the foul line, on top of five assists and four rebounds. 

“It was probably one of the best games I had,” he said. “In the playoffs you have that aura around you, you just want to play better. Yeah, [it was] probably one of my best games.”

“He’s terrific, he’s really grown as a person and as a player,” said Joe Dempsey, Spring-Ford’s second-year head coach. “He had some tough moments last year with some plays he would have liked to have gotten back, and his floor game is just so impressive now. He’s more patient and I think he’s really grown into just a tremendous leader and the kids respect his game. 

“He moves the ball, and he plays great ‘D,’ and he’s a pleasure to coach.”

Campbell paced a Spring-Ford attack which made exactly half of its 44 shots, shooting 6-of-13 from downtown and 16-of-19 from the foul line, the last number most important to a team that’s had some shaky game from the free throw line.

Tack it up to youth: Dempsey’s group starts two sophomores and a junior, who are — along with the seniors — still very much getting used to this whole ‘winning a lot’ thing.

‘I’ve said all along, there was a lot of pressure on the guys, especially after we started winning so many games in a row,” Dempsey said. “We were taking everybody’s best punch and now obviously we’re the No. 1 seed in the district after we won our league and we take everybody’s best shot.”

Downingtown West, which only turned it over nine times and had more offensive rebounds (nine) than Spring-Ford (seven), was done in by a 2-of-22 showing from 3-point range, a rare off day for a team that usually shoots the ball confidently and at a good clip from beyond the arc; going 8-of-14 from the foul line wasn’t ideal, either.

Army commit Dylan Blair (12 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) did his usual mix of ball-handling, shot-creating and defending the point of attack, but the usually-sharpshooting senior guard couldn’t get one to drop, and it wasn’t due to shot selection or rushing. And he wasn’t alone; the figurative lid was on the West basket, and it never came off, the Whippets missing a number of layups to boot.

“It’s not so much about strategy as it is shot-making and making foul shots,” West coach Stu Ross said. “We definitely missed some big shots and some opportunities that we normally make. We’ve gotta bounce back for the seeding game on Friday and on to states after that.”

“I didn’t get a sense that the game was ever out of hand or out of our reach, but when some of those layups that we normally make, the ball’s rolling around the rim and comes back out, those are run-killers,” he said. “Other than that, I thought we played hard, I thought defensively we were in a good position [...] foul shots, some shot-making, maybe rebounding the ball better in the first half probably would have helped us. But credit to Spring-Ford for being able to make the shots when they needed to.”

It was only a 10-9 Spring-Ford lead after one quarter, the separation starting to happen in the second, when threes by Campbell and sophomore Jacob Nguyen (16 points) helped the Rams build a 26-17 lead. The Rams tacked on 20 more in the third, Nguyen hitting a couple more 3s and Campbell a trey and a three-point play, and it was 46-31 going into the fourth quarter.

The Whippets didn’t give up, scoring the first six points of the final frame to get it back to nine points; most of the fourth was played within 8-to-10 points, but West couldn’t get close enough. Every time it had a chance at cutting it to six or fewer, there was a missed shot or turnover, and Spring-Ford had an answer at the other end. 

The Rams went 12-of-15 from the foul line in the final quarter, Campbell hitting a key pair with 1:01 left to keep the lead at nine.

“Our main thing in the huddle was [to] make our free throws,” he said. “We knew we were going to win the game at that time, it was just going to come down to free throws and playing defense.”

Spring-Ford’s enjoying a breakthrough this season, taking the top seed in the District 1 tournament on the backs of a 20-2 regular season, now 25-2 after winning the Pioneer Athletic Championship and its first three district playoff games. That comes off the backs of a season where they went 13-9, earning a spot in the District 1 playoffs, though they lost their only two games.

While the players might be low on postseason experience, Dempsey is not. The former head coach at La Salle took the Explorers to the AAAA state championship game in 2014 and often found success in the Catholic League with teams that punched above their weight, proving himself one of the top coaches in the area before school removed him from the position — a move that was not well-received by the program’s alumni — in 2018.

Dempsey’s certainly proving his worth on the sideline, though he also gave credit to his assistant coaches: Jim Sheedy, GT Pufko, Mike Allerton, Todd Lewullis and Dan Corr, who played for him on that 2014 state runner-up squad. 

“He tells us he’s been in that position before so he just tells us to trust him,” Campbell said, “and I think we all just trust our coach and we trust each other.”

“Spring-Ford gave me a chance and the kids have believed in me, the administration is supportive and nothing’s different, truthfully,” Dempsey said. “It means as much to these kids as playing at the Palestra or winning a Catholic League title, these are the games in front of them. They’re in this league and it’s important to them and it’s no less of an experience, you know? 

“They’re playing with their brothers, they’ll have these memories forever and it’s all you can ask, I think as a high school coach, is you’re making memories for these kids.”

To capture the first District 1 6A title in program history — Spring-Ford’s girls did so in 2021 before going on to win the state title — the Rams will have their hands full with the Colonials, who beat No. 3 Lower Merion by six points on Tuesday night to make it back to the district championship.

It’s a spot that Jim Donofrio has been in a number of times before, most recently winning it all in 2016, back when it was still just the AAAA title. Plymouth Whitemarsh is talented, led by senior guard Qudire Bennett and juniors Jaden Colzie and Chase Coleman, winning the Suburban One League title and going without a loss since Dec. 30.

So far, Spring-Ford’s passed every test. Acing their toughest one yet, and they’ll have some more hardware to show off. 

“We’ve been thinking about this since last summer, just grinding in the offseason and just putting in work. It’s a major goal,” Campbell said. “It just feels good to set records, [now we can] hopefully get a banner in here hanging up.”

By Quarter
DW:   9   |   8   |  14  |  21  ||  52
SF:   10  |  16  |  20  |  20  ||  66

Shooting
DW: 21-51 FG (2-22 3PT), 8-14 FT
SF: 22-44 FG (6-13 3PT), 16-19 FT

Scoring
DW: Donovan Fromhartz 15, Kelly Bell 13, Dylan Blair 12, Antonio Lewis 8, Ryan Barker 4

SF: EJ Campbell 27, Jacob Nguyen 16, Tommy Kelly 7, Alex Lewis 7, Zach Zollers 4, Caleb Little 3, Tyree Banks 2