City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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POTTSVILLE — For a little more than a quarter, everything went to plan for Coatesville. A few early shots went down, the Raiders defense forced turnovers then all the sudden reigning state champion Reading showed its championship mettle.

The Red Knights dominated from the middle of the second quarter on for a 62-44 win over Coatesville in Saturday’s PIAA Class 6A quarterfinal at Martz Hall in Pottsville. Reading senior Yadiel Cruz had 17 of his game-high 25 points in the second half and the Red Knights’ defense flustered the Raiders into a rut they never worked their way out of.

“We talked about them (Reading) being champions at that point, what was going to happen with them,” Coatesville coach John Allen said. “They were going to fight. We just hit a rough patch, and we couldn’t get it going.

“Without watching the tape, there’s no explanation to what happened, how it ballooned, but I’m proud of our guys. I’m proud of our seniors. I’m always proud of them.”

Coatesville (22-9) led 18-5 with 5:45 left in the second quarter after senior Dior Kennedy followed up his own miss. The Raiders didn’t score for the rest of the quarter as Reading (21-11) rattled off 14 straight to cut its deficit to one, 18-17 at the break.

“It was staying together because us knowing that when we make mistakes half of the time through the season we put our heads down,” said Reading senior Nick Chapman, who added nine points along with a number of game-changing plays. “Us staying together through the adversity through the middle of the game helped us a lot.”

The run never stopped for Reading. Chapman came up with a steal on the first possession of the second half and pushed the ball ahead to Cruz to give the Red Knights their first lead seconds into the third. By the two-minute mark in the third quarter the Reading lead was up to 35-22 after what amounted to a 30-4 run over a 12-minute stretch of game action. 

Coatesville senior Zuri Harris, who led his team with 13 points, started the fourth with a three to cut the deficit to 10. After a block by Larry Brown the Raiders looked they had to chance to grab a little bit of momentum, but a miss on the other end was followed by another Red Knights run. Reading was up by more than 20 and on its way to the semifinals by the midway point of the third.

“We started out early like we expected to and like we did last game,” Harris said. “They started to go on their run, and we were still up at half. We said oh wow it’s only 18-17 at half, we should still win this game, but the momentum, we never got ahold of it, sadly. We never calmed down at all. That definitely sucks, but I’ve still got basketball to play, so at college, next chapter I’ll try to work on that.”

Coatesville hoisted hardware for the first time since 2017 when it won the Ches-Mont League title earlier this season. In his second year at the helm, Allen and the Raiders reached the PIAA quarterfinals for the second straight year.

Seniors Kennedy, Harris, Marquis Peoples Jr., Will Fowlkes, P.J. Miles and Patrick Hall will be missed next season.

“It was amazing,” Harris said. “Not the way we wanted to finish it, but I hope that we left a legacy and the juniors, the sophomores, the underclassmen, they can see how much work we put it in. … We’re a really good group, and it sucks that it has to end, but I’m happy how we stayed together through it all.”

Coatesville’s head coach echoed his senior’s sentiments.

“I really appreciate our seniors,” Allen said. “I really appreciated the work that they’ve done, and they’ve laid a good foundation for the younger guys, who can say those teams for four or five years ago were really good.”

Reading state champion alums Ruben Rodriguez, Aris Rodriguez and Myles Grey watched their former teammates reach a second straight state Final Four from behind the Red Knights’ bench Saturday.

Unlike last year’s run to state gold, this year’s run wasn’t expected after being upset by Red Lion in the third place game of the District 3 tournament.

However, they survived Chester in the first round, outlasted McDowell in overtime in the second round and after a dominant quarterfinal win over Coatesville the Red Knights look like they have as good a chance as anybody to repeat heading into next Tuesday’s semifinal against Central York.

“We knew we had it (in us), but not everybody else knew, so we’ve proved everybody wrong and we’re gonna keep proving everybody wrong throughout the rest of the season,” Chapman said.

By Quarter

Coatesville  22 | 6 | 5 | 18 || 44

Reading  5 | 12 | 22 | 23 || 62

Scoring

Coatesville: Zuri Harris 13, Amon Fowlkes 11, Marquis Peoples Jr. 5, Dior Kennedy 4, Larry Brown 4, Armon Shockley 4, PJ Miles 3.

Reading: Yadiel Cruz 25, Nick Chapman 9, Jeremiah Camara 7, Nico Sosa 6, Weshly Rosario 4, Malik Osumanu 4, Xavier Beatty 2.

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PIAA 6A Boys

Quarterfinals (Sat., March 16)
12-3 Archbishop Wood 67, 1-9 Spring-Ford 61
11-1 Parkland 57, 12-1 Roman Catholic 50
3-4 Reading 62, 1-6 Coatesville 44
3-5 Central York 71, 7-1 Upper St. Clair 60

Semifinals (Tue., March 19)
12-3 Archbishop Wood vs. 11-1 Parkland
3-4 Reading vs. 3-5 Central York

Championship at Giant Center (Sat., March 23)
TBD, 8 p.m.