City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@owen.mccue)
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COATESVILLE — Through the first three quarters of Friday night’s district quarterfinal, the Spring-Ford defense made Colton Hiller a non-factor.

Had his team been ahead on the scoreboard, the Coatesville freshman wouldn’t have paid too much attention to the zero next to his name in the scorebook. With his team in an eight-point hole, however, Hiller knew he needed to find a way to leave his mark on the game.

He finally found the bottom of the net on a three early in the fourth, marking the beginnings of a take over of the game by the youngster.  Hiller scored all 21 of his points in the fourth quarter and overtime to guide the second-seeded Raiders to a 63-56 win over 10 seed Spring-Ford and send them into Tuesday’s semifinal round against third seed Conestoga.

“I was in my head. They were being aggressive with me, face guarding me,” Hiller said. “I just had to go get it. That’s all that mattered.”

The Raiders (21-5) led 18-17 at halftime despite falling behind by eight early, but Spring-Ford (19-8) senior Jacob Nguyen had 12 of his 29 in the third quarter to help his team to a 35-25 lead late in the period. Hiller’s first points of the game didn’t come until a minute and a half into the fourth when he drained a three to cut the deficit to five. 

He added four more free throws during a 10-0 run that gave Coatesville a 37-35 advantage with 4:30 left in regulation. The 6-5 guard/wing had 11 fourth quarter points.

“Their freshman Hiller is a fantastic player,” Spring-Ford coach Joe Dempsey said. “I thought we did a fantastic job on him for three quarters and he got loose a little bit in the fourth quarter and then obviously in the overtime we lost him once or twice.”

Spring-Ford didn’t let Coatesville out of its grasp. Junior Syaire Barnes tied the game a minute later. Nguyen put the Rams back up 41-40 at the 1:28 with his fifth of six triples in the game. Two Hiller free throws flipped the lead back to the Raiders before Barnes drilled a go-ahead three to put the Rams back in front 44-42 with 19.1 seconds left.

Coatesville went inside to junior forward Larry Brown on the ensuing possession, and Brown muscled his way to the hoop to tie the score with 3.6 seconds to go. 

“I just stayed focus,” Brown said. “And I stayed with my guys, and stayed physical. Once the ball got up, I made sure I stayed grounded, made sure I get it right when it goes up.”

After the Raiders' defense forced a five-second count, Spring-Ford had to defend Brown down low again as Coatesville went for the win. This time, senior Tommy Kelly held his ground to force the game into overtime.

Brown got the Coatesville crowd into the game with an and-one to start the extra period. Hiller let loose a long three a few moments later that put the Raiders up 50-44 and sent his teammates (most notably junior guard Chris Allegra) and the crowd into a frenzy. 

He took a few moments to think about the decision before letting the long bomb fly.

“It was from really deep. I didn’t know if I wanted to shoot it,” Hiller said. “But I just went back to my mechanics, trusted it. I shoot those all the time from deep, it doesn’t matter. Hopefully it went in or I would have got yelled at.”

“The stadium erupted after that.”

A steal and score by Coatesville senior Amon Fowlkes made it an eight-point game with two and a half minutes left and continued to liven the Raiders faithful.

The Rams hung tough, a Nugyen four-point play allowing them to get as close as four, but Coatesville made 10-of-11 free throws in overtime. Hiller made his first 11 free throws before missing his last one of the night.

Fowlkes (12), Brown (11) and senior guard Nasir Williams (11) joined Hiller in double figures. Barnes had 16 points for Spring-Ford.

“We were one stop away from winning the game,” Dempsey said.

“We took Coatesville to overtime. In a vacuum, I think they have a little more talent than us, but the kids maxed out. We played as hard as we could, I thought we had a good game plan. Our kids made plays. They were tough, they were resilient, tough atmosphere, big crowd and I’m proud of my team.”

Spring-Ford will play two more games for state seeding, starting with a home game against Cheltenham on Tuesday night. The Rams have already locked up a state playoff bid for the third straight season.

Coatesville will play in its first semifinal since 2019 when it faces Conestoga on Tuesday. The two teams played each other in early December when the Raiders topped the Pioneers 63-60.

“It’s going to take all of us,” Fowlkes said. “It’s not just going to be him (Hiller), it’s not just going to be me or Larry. It’s going to take a team effort.”

Spring-Ford 13 | 4 | 18 | 9 | 12 || 56

Coatesville 7 | 11 | 9 | 17 | 19 || 63

Spring-Ford: Jacon Nguyen 29, Syaire Barnes 16, Tommy Kelly 4, Jordan Marsilio 4, Blake Turner 2, Luke Pufko 1

Coatesville: Colton Hiller 21, Amon Fowlkes 12, Larry Brown 11, Nasir Williams 11, Max Hiller 4. Armond Shockley 3, Chris Allegra 1