City of Basketball Love

By Dan Arkans (@danarkans)
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Wissahickon junior guard Nico Vacchiano did his best impression of the Energizer Bunny on Friday night against North Penn, never slowing down for the entire 32 minutes.

By the time Vacchiano was done and his stat line delivered totals of 24 points, 8 rebounds and 3 steals in a 45-38 victory, he mostly wanted to talk about the final play of the game.

“The dunk,” said Vacchiano of his favorite play of the night. “The dunk put a statement on the win.”

Vacchiano played a bit in the shadows last year behind his brother Dom, now at Immaculata College. This year it’s a different role for the junior, who spent the summer putting on plenty of muscle and plenty of game.

No longer is he a point guard who dishes the ball off to other scorers. He now is the scorer, the rebounder, the defender. In other words Vacchiano is doing it all for the Trojans.

“I’m a captain this year and that’s what I am made to do,” Vacchiano said. “I’ve worked for it, so I make sure guys are in the right spots and we work well together as a team.”

Vacchiano watched other leaders of the Wissahickon program the past two seasons, including his older brother. The brothers worked out in the gym and on court together. As fate would have it his older brother suffered an injury at Immaculata, which has only given him more time to help out younger bro from the bench.

“His brother who’s in the boot, walking around on the bench was our best player last year,” said Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson. “So it’s not like he doesn’t hear from him as well about what you need to do. You’ve got to get open because his brother is telling the guys stuff, he’s already like 'you know what coach said about getting open, you got to sprint.' They gotta stop jogging and it’s neat to hear him say those things that we’ve been trying to teach guys because kids are kids, you know they see all the highlights and stuff on Instagram and Tik Tok. I think that’s easy. And that was a hard, fun game against a very good team.”

Vacchiano certainly plays with his heart on his sleeve. He not only heard it from the North Penn fans, but got plenty of support as well. His biggest supporter just happens to be in his ear a bit.

“He’s here right now,” Vacchiano said of brother Dom. “He supports me in every way. That’s been good. It’s mainly a relationship built off of basketball.”

Vacchiano’s energy was apparent from the opening tip as he started things off with a personal 6-0 run as Wiss led 10-7 after one quarter and 23-12 at the break where the Trojans junior had 12 points himself at the half.

While he was everywhere on the court, North Penn appeared a step slow playing its fifth game of the season already.

“It’s tough because you know it’s five games in seven days and we’re tired,” NP head coach Cordell Lord said. “And you know this is tough because not even NBA teams play five games in seven days. But you know it’s something we just work through. I’m super proud of their energy and their effort.”

Vacchiano opened the third quarter with an old-fashioned 3-point play as the Trojans lead blossomed to 26-12, but the Knights did not go quietly into the night themselves. North Penn whittled it down to 29-20 after three quarters, but apparently were just getting started.

The Knights used some frenetic full-court pressure in eventually cutting the deficit to 40-35 with 48 seconds to play after seven consecutive points, including a pair of free throws from Lee Hammond (11 points).

“We came out flat,” Lord said. “I think some of it came down to some nerves. It came down to nerves for sure. And you know there was a little frustration as the game went on. We started to turn that corner. They turned it on a quarter too late.”

It turns out though Vacchiano wasn’t even slowing down, closing the game with a one-man press break and dishing the ball to Ben Schwartz for a lay-up and a 42-35 lead.

“It was a crazy game,” Vacchiano said. “The crowd was talking all game. We found a way to worry about ourselves, work as a team, not get on each other. It was tough. Everyone was in their own head. We have some kids who came up from JV last year that are starting now and it’s been a stretch, but they’ve been working for it and I just think as a team we played amazing.”

North Penn wasn’t quite ready to turn off the lights as Hammond answered with a 3-pointer with 18 seconds left, leaving the score at 42-38. After missing his last two free throws, Vacchiano was fouled again.

“Nico missed a couple and you know what he was our point guard last year,” Wilson said. “So, he was the guy with the ball in his hands last year. Oh you can score everywhere else on the court but all of a sudden that’s your kryptonite?. The thing for Nico is when you play with that sort of high intensity you know it’s like watching Russell Westbrook. It’s a tough thing to bring it down when you gotta relax and shoot a free throw. So sometimes you gotta be poised that they’re just calm, like you don’t have to go up there and muscle up and be intense.”

This time Vacchiano was calm, made 1-of-2 free throws and after a North Penn miss all that was left was one thunderous dunk.

“I just had confidence,” said Vacchiano of his final free throws. “I don’t get nervous. I just had to keep shooting when I knew I could knock them down even though they weren’t falling. I knew I could knock them down.”

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By Quarter
Wissahickon 10-13-6-16-45
North Penn 7-5-8-18-38

Wissahickon (45): Vacchiano 24; Stelzer 7; Schwartz 12; Taliaferro 0; Maltin 0; Lee 2.

North Penn (38): Ward 5; Hammond 11; Godhania 7; Altemus 7; Atkinson 4; Foust 4.