City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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NEWTOWN SQUARE — With under 10 seconds to play against Episcopal Academy and Camden Burns about to take the biggest foul shots of Springside-Chestnut Hill’s season, SCH coach Julian McFadden looked at his point guard and asked him for a favor. 

“Can you knock these down for me?” McFadden said. 

It wasn’t as simple of a question as it appeared. Burns, just a few seconds earlier, had taken a knock to the head on an inbounds play, was being tended to by the athletic trainer as the team huddled up before he went to the line. 

“I was dizzy at first,” he said. “I thought I was done.”

But Burns shook it off, went up to the charity stripe and calmly knocked down a pair, ensuring that the Blue Devils held on for an 84-79 overtime win over the Churchmen. After three straight league losses (four overall) to nearly drop out of the running, Springside is right back into the thick of the Inter-Ac mix. 

The freebies capped off a 19-point outing for Burns, one of four SCH Academy players in double figures in a game that was about as good as it gets to watch for an impartial viewer, and as anxiety-producing as it gets for any of the participants. 

After blowing a 10-point fourth quarter lead, SCH needed a 3-pointer from star junior Keni Williams with 15 seconds left to quiet a loud Episcopal student section and send things to overtime. The extra session was back-and-forth, one big shot followed by another from both sides. 

Williams was stellar with 26 points, adding six rebounds and four steals, hitting three second-half 3-pointers as he led all scorers. EA’s Langston Foster (21 points, 9 rebounds), Kevin McCarthy (19 points, nine rebounds), Matt McCarthy (18 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists) and Reggie King (15 points, 3 rebounds) all stuffed the stat sheet, all hit big-time shots, all make plays that would have gotten them written about on other nights.

SCH sophomore Owen Kelly (11 points, 4 rebounds) hit the night’s most clutch shot, a 3-pointer from the corner off a kick-out from Ron Brown III (14 points, 3 steals) with less than a minute left in overtime to put the Blue Devils up 79-75.

“Physically, he’s not really where he wants to be yet in terms of what varsity basketball’s going to look like for him, but he’s a freaking confident kid, man,” McFadden said of Kelly, a 6-foot-4 left-handed wing. “I knew he was going to shoot it, literally as Ron was getting in the lane, I knew Owen was going to shoot that, and it was great that he made it.”

Burns made it 81-77 with 15 seconds left, a wide-open layup off a leak-out pass from senior guard Ryan Kull (8 points, 5 assist, 4 rebounds). He added three foul shots in the final 12 seconds for the final margin. 

“It means a lot, we’re back in first place now,” Burns said. “We needed this win, we were on like a four-game losing streak, so we really needed this win.”

“We stressed that a lot, this was our biggest game of the season, really,” Kull said. “If we lose, it’s over. 

Had the result gone the other way, SCH would have been out of the league race with two to play. Instead, the win blows the whole Inter-Ac wide open. 

The Blue Devils and Churchmen are now tied for the league lead at 5-3 with Penn Charter, which beat Malvern Prep (4-5) on Tuesday night to keep pace. The Haverford School (4-4), which beat last-place Germantown Academy (2-7) on Tuesday afternoon, is right there as well.

“Chaotic” was the word Burns used to describe the like. “Unpredictable” was McFadden’s.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” he said.  I have no idea what’s going to happen tonight with that Malvern game. But I care. It’s unpredictable, you just never know.”

“From an outside perspective it's awesome — in it, it’s a different kind of awesome,” Episcopal coach Taylor Wright said. “It’s great for the sport, for the kids to play these high-level games, great coaches, great talent, guys buying into everybody’s system. I think these kids are gonna learn a lot and that’s what it's about, learn how to compete at a high level. 

“Hopefully, by the end of it we’ll look back and think ‘what a great experience,’ but when you're in it, it's tough.”

If Springside wins out, beating Malvern Prep on Friday and the Haverford School next week, the worst the Blue Devils could do would be a split title, though there’s multiple options as to who they’d split that with. If Malvern beats Penn Charter, an EA/SCH split is possible, though EA closes with Haverford (at Haverford) on Friday and Penn Charter (at Episcopal) next Tuesday. 

There is a world in which no Inter-Ac team finishes with better than a 5-5 league record, though that’s unlikely.

“Someone could easily win this league at 6-4,” McFadden said. “You just never know.”

If that is Springside, it’ll snap a 14-year streak without an Inter-Ac title, the school last winning one in 2010 when it was Chestnut Hill Academy, just before it merged with the all-girls Springside. 

Penn Charter and Malvern Prep shared it each of the last two seasons, Malvern taking it solo with an unbeaten record in 2020. Nobody’s won the Inter-Ac with fewer than eight wins since 1969, when — according to hoops historian Ted Silary — GA, Haverford and Penn Charter all went 7-3. 

Since the league has gone to a 10-game format, nobody’s ever won it with six wins. SCH Academy won’t care about being the first, even if it’s a split title, after coming up short with high expectations the last few years. 

“I felt like we should have won my sophomore year and my junior year,” Burns said. “I felt like we should have won, we were the favorites to win. And because I scored 1,000 this year, it would be good to score 1,000 and get the ‘chip, too.”

“That would mean the world to me,” Kull said. “That’s all I ever wanted since I got to this school, to win an Inter-Ac championship.”

By Quarter
SCH: 13  |  22  |  18  |  14  |  17  ||  84
EA:    22  |  12  |  14  |  19  |  12  ||  79

Shooting
SCH: 33-60 FG (6-21 3PT), 12-18 FT
EA: 27-55 FG (16-39 3PT), 9-11 FT

Scoring
SCH: Keni Williams 26, Camden Burns 19, Ron Brown III 14, Owen Kelly 11, Ryan Kull 8, Kam Waters 4

EA: Langston Foster 21, Kevin McCarthy 19, Matt McCarthy 18, Reggie King 15, Calvin Szoradi 4, Tyler Beaulieu 2