City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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LOWER MERION — James Brenner would like to pound the ball through the court if he could.

It’s part of his internal mantra of focusing on the little things. Brenner feels hard dribbles have made his handle tighter and allows him to be quicker to the basket. It’s helped the gangly 6-foot-5 Unionville boys basketball sophomore get offers from Bryant and Sacred Heart. It’s aided him in taking his game out more than it was a year ago.

The emphasis on minutia has also created career games like Brenner had Saturday night, when the Longhorns beat the Inter-Academic League’s Haverford School 55-49 in overtime in the last game of the City of Basketball Love Showcase at Harriton High School.

Brenner scored a career-best 17 points in the nightcap. The Longhorns (6-1) also got 12 points from senior guard Ryan Brown and 10 from senior forward Charlie Kammeier, who combined for 11 of Unionville’s 13 points in overtime.

But it was Brenner who got the Longhorns there.

“James as a freshman brought a lot of great effort and energy last year, and he’s playing a different role for us this year,” Unionville coach Chris Cowles said. “He’s worked really hard going from a big for us to making himself into a true wing this year. He’s even bringing up the ball for us. He started for us last year as a post position and played his role. He expanded that this year.”

The victory was big for Unionville, which has large aspirations this season. The Longhorns have a chance to be serious contenders for the District 1 Class 5A title. Unionville has victories over District 1 Class 6A runner-up Spring-Ford and has now won two overtime games, with a buzzer-beater over Pottstown.

“Haverford School is a very good team and a well-coached team, and this was big for us,” Cowles said.

Brenner’s development has helped in this start.

“Coach Cowles told me that we were losing a couple of guys, and he needed me to work in the offseason on my handle and taking my game out more, and it gave me some excitement,” Brenner said. “Last year, I played a completely different role, doing the dirty work, handing off, getting rebounds. I’m going to be a guard in college.”

That’s where his hard handle comes into play. His goal is to break the floor. He’s certainly moving better.

Through three quarters, Brenner scored 16 of his game-high 17, with his third 3-pointer of the game enabling the Longhorns to pull within 33-31 with 2:50 left in the third quarter.

On the next trip, JT Anderson’s trey gave Unionville its first lead since the first quarter. From there, the teams were not separated by more than four points.

“I think we have to give better attention to detail,” Fords’ coach Bernie Rogers said. “We had a couple of careless turnovers, where in a game like this, every possession means so much.”

With points coming at a premium, Haverford School 6-3 freshman guard Silas Graham’s bucket cutting through a Unionville zone with 1:45 left in regulation tied it at 42-42. From there, neither team got a clean look, pushing the game into overtime.

Regrettably for the Fords (4-4), Graham and KJ Carson, who combined for 20 of the Fords’ points, fouled out in the extra stanza.  

Kammeier hit four successive free throws to give the Longhorns a 50-44 cushion with 1:01 left in overtime, and the Fords never got within five points again.

“We’ve been struggling a little from the foul line, and this was nice to win this,” Kammeier said. “We’ve been winning close games, but some we could have put away some of these teams earlier. It’s nice to close finally.”

Carson led Haverford School with 13, while Jacob Becker chipped in with 11.

“I thought we fought in the end and we made shots early,” Rogers said. “There were good looks that we didn’t make. We talked to the team a little bit about not letting missed shots bother us and play through it. It was a hard-fought game against a good team that we hope gets us better for our league.”

By Quarter

Haverford School:  12  | 10  |  14  |  16 | 7 ||  49

Unionville:  13  | 9  |  15  | 5 | 13 ||  55

Scoring

Haverford School: KJ Carson 13, Jacob Becker 11, Silas Graham 7, Connor Scanlan 5, Leo Becker 4, Evan Large 4, Billy Rayer 3, Dillon Gamble 2.

Unionville: James Brenner 17, Ryan Brown 12, Charlie Kammeier 10, JT Anderson 9, Jack Robbins 5, Nick Diehl 2.

Joseph Santoliquito is a hall of fame, award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.