City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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With less than three minutes left in a key Suburban One-Freedom matchup and his William Tennent squad leading by four, Panthers senior Chris D’Ambra knew if he was going to put up a shot, it had to be just the right kind.

“Nothing too contested,” he said, “just a smart shot that I know I can knock down.”

That came in the form of a wide-open corner 3-pointer, no Upper Moreland player in sight. And D’Ambra’s dagger was true, his last of four triples on the evening helping ensure Tennent came away with a critical 65-54 win. 

William Tennent (12-6, 9-4) was up four coming out of a timeout with 2:50 remaining, trying its best to hold off an Upper Moreland squad which had been down 14 at half but closed the gap to within a couple buckets thanks to a big third quarter. 

The Panthers worked the ball around for about 30 seconds against an aggressive Golden Bears zone trap, eventually getting it to standout senior Kirby Mooney almost under the bucket. Mooney made a pass out to the wing, then almost immediately got the ball back, pivoted and found D’Ambra on the opposite corner, right in front of his bench.

As the ball was on its way, D’Ambra already knew what he was about to do. The 5-foot-10 lefty’s shot caught nothing but net.

“It feels great,” he said. “That’s what you practice for, really.”

“He’s one of our better shooters, if not our best shooter,” Mooney said. “We trust him, we know he’s going to knock ‘em down. It was huge, it took away the run they were on, too.”

Mooney, who finished with a game-high 28 points as he closes in on the Tennent all-time scoring record, sealed the game at the foul line, going 13-of-14 from the stripe overall and 7-of-8 in the fourth quarter, his only miss coming with a few seconds left and the game well in hand. 

The only returning starter from last year’s Tennent squad, Mooney has been getting strong support all season from D’Ambra (15 points, 3 assists) and Imad Abunima (11 points, 7 rebounds), the two seniors going from reserves a year ago to key pieces this year. 

It’s a group that’s been growing together, as evidenced by their improvement from an 18-point defeat against Upper Moreland back in December. Their revenge win — over a team that isn’t quite a full-blooded rival but whose games are starting to feel like it, with two loud student sections chanting at each other all game long — was the sixth triumph in seven games for Tennent, which was coming off another confidence-building win over Plymouth Whitemarsh the night before.

““I feel like our defense early on in the season, it was rough. We’re really starting to lock in on defense and making that a defense-first mindset,” Mooney said. “Tonight we played great defense in the first half, pretty good defense in the second half.”

Colson Campbell (15 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals) led the way for Upper Moreland (11-7, 8-5), the No. 8 team in the District 1 5A rankings. Sean Murphy added 12 points and Alex Best 10 for the Golden Bears, who travel to Pope John Paul II on Monday for a non-league contest. 

Last season was something of a breakthrough for Tennent’s boys, which won 16 regular-season games to capture a share of the Suburban One-Freedom title and the No. 12 seed in the District 1 6A playoffs. 

But the Panthers lost their final three games of the season: the regular-season finale at Lower Moreland, then a Suburban One quarterfinal against Upper Dublin and a District 1 6A first-round game against Haverford High, both at home. Just a couple weeks after riding a six-game winning streak, Tennent’s season was over.

That Haverford loss has been in the back of the Panthers’ mind all season

“We let that one get away from us,” D’Ambra said. “I think we were kind of satisfied going into that game [...] we kind of came out sluggish a little bit that game, and that’s on our minds this year, definitely.”

The Upper Moreland win kept Tennent in the No. 18 spot in the unofficial District 1 6A formula rankings, reasonably safely into what will be a 24-team field. Two spots shy of hosting a first-round game, the Panthers know they need to finish strong not just to finish atop the SOL-Freedom but to put themselves in as good a position as possible to advance. 

Getting to just the second round of the district playoffs guarantees at least a couple more games; a quarterfinals appearance means not just a state berth but an additional three or four games overall. It sounds simple enough; Tennent knows it’s far from easy to accomplish.

“We have a bunch of guys who were on that team last year, and I just felt like we were satisfied and we were too confident in the first round, we overlooked the Haverford team we played,” Mooney said. “This year we have to be ready for anybody. Everybody’s good this year, everybody’s good.”

By Quarter
William Tennent:  24  |  19  |  10  |  12  ||  65
Upper Moreland:  19  |  10  |  18  |   7   ||  54

Shooting
William Tennent: 18-42 FG (9-27 3PT), 20-25 FT
Upper Moreland: 19-51 FG (3-16 3PT), 13-22 FT

Scoring
William Tennent: Kirby Mooney 28, Chris D’Ambra 15, Imad Abunima 11, Tony Pople 6, Sean Devine 5

Upper Moreland: Colson Campbell 15, Sean Murphy 12, Alex Best 10, Nate Best 7, Larry Hughes 5, Anthony Carson 2, Brayden Martin 2, Jimmy Perce 1