City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Gregg Downer knows what life in the driver’s seat is like.

The Lower Merion coach has had more than his fair share of Central League championships, from Kobe Bryant’s senior season in 1996 through his most recent in 2022. His Aces went undefeated in the league in a handful of them, which for a good while was enough for an automatic berth in the Central League championship game.

Usually, those teams were expected, stocked with proven talent, like the 2012-13 group led by B.J. Johnson or the 2018-19 team led by Jack Forrest, Lower Merion the clear favorite to control the league of suburban public schools west and southwest of the city.

This year’s group is doing something different: surprising everybody.

An 80-75 win over Marple Newtown on a snowy Saturday afternoon moved Lower Merion to 12-1 on the season and a perfect 7-0 in Central League play. The Aces are two games clear of the rest of the league one game shy of the halfway point, their only loss coming to a team from Ohio at an event in Arizona during the holiday break.

“I don’t think a lot of people expected this — including some of the coaches,” Downer said with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting to be 12-1. It’s really exciting, there’s a lot of kids that are really stepping up and cashing in on their moment.”

Expectations were somewhat lowered for the Lower Merion program this season after the Aces graduated a stalwart pair of seniors in Sam Wright and Sam Brown -- the former doing a post-grad year at Hun School (N.J.), the latter in the starting lineup at Penn -- amongst a deep senior class. The Central League seemed wide open for anyone's taking, defending champ Radnor graduating just about its entire rotation, the Aces without a true star or proven veteran. 

Instead, they're rolling along, as strong as ever, just scoring a lot more than ever before.

“It’s a great feeling,” senior guard Owen McCabe said. “I think it’s really nice to see how we’re coming along. Our chemistry is great. I think we’re a great team — we share the ball, we move the ball, we have shooters everywhere, it’s great.”

The Aces’ Saturday win over the Tigers was a terrific contest between two teams that combined to 58.8% from the floor and better than 48% from the 3-point arc, a couple big momentum swings ultimately settling in the home team’s favor.

McCabe, who finished with a game-high 20 points for the Aces on Saturday, was responsible for a good chunk of the biggest run. With Lower Merion up four late in the third quarter, the senior guard tossed in a floater just ahead of the buzzer to make it a 51-45 game going into the fourth. Less than a minute into the final quarter, he hit a side-step 3-pointer — his first of the game after six early misses — then followed that up with another trey to make it a 59-45 ballgame. 

“I knew we had to take a bigger lead, so (when) I saw some open space, then I just shot it,” he said. 

Marple (6-6, 4-3), which used a 12-0 run of its own to go up seven in the first quarter and led much of the first half, didn’t let Lower Merion run away down the stretch. The Aces’ led got as low as six, but a high-scoring squad that’s gotten to 80 points six times this year couldn’t be stopped. 

Adam Herrenkohl scored 19 points, hitting a pair of 3s; fellow senior John Mobley added 14 and five boards, finishing strong after early foul trouble. Wing forward Jayden Robinson, a senior and the only new member of the program, added 15 points, four rebounds, two steals and a block in what Downer called his best game of the season. 

As a team, the Aces were 26-of-44 (59%) from the floor, a near-perfect 20-of-21 from the foul line, including 16-of-16 in the second half, 11-of-11 in the fourth to seal the win.

“I feel good,” Downer said about his trust in his team’s ability to close out games. “We’re really good at the foul line, as you can see. I think there was a game in Arizona where we were 20-for-21 from the line [too].” 

The Tigers got a standout 28-point performance from junior guard Matt Gardler, who was hounded by the Aces’ defense all game long but still managed to get free enough to go 8-of-11 from the floor and 4-of-5 from downtown, scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter alone to help Marple stay in it. 

“We tried everything we could on Gardler, and he’s really good,” Downer said. “He had 28 points and never felt like they were totally out of it because of how dynamic he is.

Junior forward Ryan Keating (15 points, seven rebounds, three assists), senior forward David Bertoline (13 points, two assists) and senior guard Steven Tansey (10 points, four assists, three steals) joined Gardler in double figures for the Tigers.

“To Marple’s credit, they played with a lot of confidence and a lot of energy. They were really, really hyped up, and they really believed that they could win. That’s a team that we could see again.”

Lower Merion’s got four more games against the 5A squads of the Central League, playing at Strath Haven and then Penncrest at home next week with Radnor (at Radnor) and Harriton (at LM) coming on Jan. 18 and Jan. 23. There’s still a difficult road game at Garnet Valley (Jan. 27), with Conestoga visiting LM on Jan. 30.

There are no non-league games remaining, and only one thing to focus on.

“All the rest of our season is Central League play,” McCabe said, “so we’re looking to stay on top of the Central League.”

By Quarter
MN:  20  |  13  |  12  |  30  ||  75
LM:  15  |  19  |  17  |  29  ||  80

Shooting
MN: 26-46 FG (8-12 3PT), 15-21 FT
LM: 26-44 FG (8-21 3PT), 20-21 FT

Scoring
MN: Matt Gardler 28, Ryan Keating 15, David Beroline 13, Steven Tansey 10, James Kirby 6, PJ Esposito 3

LM: Owen McCabe 20, Adam Herrenkohl 19, Jayden Robinson 15, John Mobley 14, Carson Kasmer 7, Tate Perkins 3, Justin Mebane 2