City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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NEWTOWN SQUARE — As Beau Lyren noted, the last stretch before scoring a thousandth point can drag out.

The Delco Christian senior had been aware of the progress he’d been making towards the milestone, the Knights’ coaching staff not shy about sharing such numbers with their players. His classmate Khamai Orange, on pace to set the program’s scoring record (currently 1,369 points), had already reached the milestone early this season. 

So when the 6-foot-3, 180-pound guard picked up his fourth foul midway through the third quarter against MaST Charter and headed to the bench, knowing he was just two points shy, Lyren knew exactly where he was at, and what he needed.

“That was part of our conversation when he came to the bench — ‘coach, I won’t get any more fouls,’” Delco Christian coach Reggie Parks said, chuckling. “It’s a burden, anybody who’s gotten 1,000 will tell you, that last six points (are) tough to get. He was feeling the pressure yesterday, and I could see it all in him today.”

Lyren finally re-entered the game in the fourth quarter, his 1,000th point coming on a floater with 7:18 remaining, a big smile breaking across Lyren’s face as he got a brief moment to celebrate with his teammates and coaches. 

Then it was back to business, the Knights fighting off a game Panthers squad that was aiming to hand Delco Christian its first league loss. But that Lyren floater started a big fourth-quarter run for the hosts, who cruised to a 67-54 win on Wednesday night.

A third-year full-time starter for the Knights, Lyren’s journey to 1,000 had already taken a strange turn of late. Last week, during a win over Pope John Paul II, Lyren’s point to a teammate was mistaken by a referee for a ‘finger gun,’ which got him sidelined for the rest of that game and a loss to Marple Newtown on Saturday. He returned on Tuesday to score 11 points in a win over The Christian Academy, moving him 15 away from the milestone heading into Wednesday.

His normally-reliable 3-point shot wasn’t falling early, as he hit only 1-of-5 from deep in the first half; a couple third-quarter 3-pointers put him back on track, but that fourth foul threatened to derail it. It wasn’t until that floater dropped that the weight did as well, one final 3-point attempt hitting nothing but net to give him 18 points in the win. 

“It’s been looming large over the past week or so, especially with my suspension,” he said. “It’s good to finally get it off my shoulders. Because I can’t lie, it was definitely in my head. As we were heading into playoffs, it was good to get it out of the way so we can focus on playoffs and making a run to the states.”

Delco Christian (16-2, 11-0 Bicentennial) used a 17-1 run to put away MaST Charter (13-7, 9-4), getting 12 of Orange’s game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter. The two senior guards combined for 42 points, junior forward Bradford Berwick (14 points, nine rebounds) joining them in double figures with a quality two-way outing.

MaST Charter got a standout 22-point, nine-rebound, three-steal performance from junior Shawn Nunez; his classmate Reuben Dorces added 16 points.

After the game, Penn State-Harrisburg head coach Don Friday came up to introduce himself to Lyren, intrigued by what he’d seen over the course of the game. Lyren said he’s also been talking to Widener, and applied to Case Western and Johns Hopkins, hoping to study engineering while still debating if he wants to play college hoops or not. 

“He’s a phenomenal young man, loved by everybody at the school, loved by his teammates, highly intelligent,” Parks said. “I’ve known him since he was in elementary school, through middle school and high school. He’s been someone who’s been here for life, bleeds green and we’re proud of him, I’m proud of him.”

A King of Prussia resident, Lyren spends most of his Sunday mornings at the Fellowship House in Conshohocken, where he volunteers with the Montgomery County Special Olympics. Lyren said he’s been volunteering for the Special Olympics since he was a kid and regularly since eighth grade, though it had only been in the last year-plus that he’s been helping out with the basketball team. 

(Writer’s aside: In the subject of full disclosure, I found this out last week through Steven Lesse, who’s one of a group of volunteers who have been running the Montgomery County Special Olympics basketball program out of Fellowship House for nearly 30 years, and who is also my uncle). 

“It’s just a joy to be around all the athletes because they just add so much value to my life,” Lyren said. “And it’s good, because they love the volunteers’ presence, they love those relationships [...] and there’s a lot of athletes, they love basketball, so everybody’s involved doing stuff helping them out. All the help’s needed.”

Delco Christian has four games left in the regular season, all league contests: at home against Bristol (Jan. 31), at Morrisville (Feb. 3) and then at home against Calvary Christian (Feb. 4) and Dock Mennonite (Feb. 6) to close out the regular season. 

They can’t overlook any of the opponents, but there’s no denying everybody’s looking forward to the game against Dock. None of Delco’s seniors have beaten Dock in their time there, Dock beating them in both the BAL and District 1 championship games last spring. There’s a good chance the two programs will see each other multiple times in the next few weeks, with as many as four matchups to come by the end of the year. 

“Past two years we played them pretty early on, and obviously it hasn’t fared well for us,” Lyren said. “And we expect to see them later in league playoffs and districts as well. It’ll be interesting to see how the timeline goes with that because we’re used to playing them earlier in the season. 

“No excuses, but it’s going to be different playing them later because we’ve been together 21 games instead of four.”

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If you’re interested in volunteering with the Montgomery County Special Olympics, you can find more information and a link to register as a volunteer here.

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By Quarter
Delco Christian: 18  |  11  |  14  |  24  ||  67
MaST Charter:   11  |  15  |  12  |  16  ||  54

Shooting
Delco Christian: 25-63 FG (7-22 3PT), 10-12 FT
MaST Charter: 18-54 FG (7-24 3PT), 11-14 FT

Scoring
Delco Christian: Khamai Orange 24, Beau Lyren 18, Bradford Berwick 14, Karter Shaheed-Freeman 7, Laverne Sambola 2, Jake Matty 2

MaST Charter: Shawn Nunez 22, Reuben Dorceus 16, Brian Mallon 11, Mikey Perez 3, Gabe Jenkins 2