City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
––

FAIRLESS HILLS >> For any other team, it might have been too much.

The scenario presented as such: on the road, in what had become a division championship game, clinging to a tenuous hold on the final spot in the District 1 Class 6A playoffs in the final week of the season and a berth in the league tournament at stake. As if that wasn’t enough, midway through the second quarter, the home team had an 11-point lead and plenty to play for itself.

For any other team, it would have been a monumental achievement to overcome it.

For Council Rock South, it was Tuesday.

A defining performance by Ryan Delp included a remarkable third quarter and plenty of help from his teammates led CR South to a 54-47 over host Pennsbury to claim the SOL Patriot title, the Golden Hawks' first-ever Suburban One crown.

“It was just built-up excitement, coming into this game we had a lot of motivation from outside factors and what people might have said about us,” Delp said. “Starting 0-4, everyone thought we were out of the league and had no chance. All that emotion came into this game and I think when we took it back into the locker room, everyone just lost it, we didn’t know what to do so we just celebrated.”

Delp dazzled with 29 points, 17 of them coming in a third quarter where he shot 5-of-7 from the floor and accounted for all of his team’s scoring. His career-high in a game, which is also the program record, was 32 points last year against Pennridge but there’s a good chance the senior will take Tuesday’s performance because it clinched the Hawks’ first-ever SOL title in boys’ basketball.

It also capped a remarkable turnaround for a team that was already facing challenges before the season even began. After last year’s 13-10 year ended in the first round of districts, Andrew Rogers stepped down after four years as head coach and leading scorer MJ Thompson transferred to the George School.

First year head coach Jim Cassidy, who had been the JV coach the last four years, also quickly found himself staring at an 0-4 start and then, halfway through division play, a 3-2 SOL Patriot record and an increasingly narrow chance at winning that coveted league title. After losing to Pennsbury 53-43 on January 6, the Golden Hawks beat CB West then fell to Wissahickon - the team that’s been chasing them for that No. 24 slot in the 6A rankings the last two weeks - to sit at 7-8 on the season.

Then, CR South started winning with Tuesday marking a seventh straight win and a 14-8 record to end the regular season.

“Put it this way, we’ve been behind 11 points all season in a sense,” Cassidy said. “For us to do that, I told the guys after they just doused me that they really changed the program in the last three weeks. We’ve had a lot of games like this, pressure builds calluses, so I think we were just ready for this game and we had a lot of senior leadership.”

As that was happening, Pennsbury hit a slide. The Falcons lost three straight last week, including SOL games against Neshaminy and CR North then a nonleague clash with Holy Ghost Prep, the latter two in overtime, opening the door for CR South to have a chance at an improbable first-ever division crown.

“I always knew we had it in us, 0-4 was obviously a tough start but with all the seniors we have, we have a lot of experience on this team,” Delp said. “I think we really came together as a group and decided we could do special things with this team.”

Pennsbury looked good early on Tuesday. Delp started slowly, missing four of his first five shots but finishing the first quarter with four points as CR South trailed 11-8 after the first eight minutes with the Falcons shooting the ball pretty well.

Even with sophomore Patrick Jajua battling foul trouble with two first quarter personals, the Falcons got a strong start to the second quarter from forward Sean Breslin who had eight points in a 1:38 span to put the hosts ahead 23-12. A free throw by Jajua put Pennsbury in front 24-13 with 3:53 to play before halftime, but he would pick up his third foul soon after and sophomore Brayden Clark tweaked a knee that put him on the bench to close the quarter although he would return in the second half.

CR South responded with an 11-0 run with Delp, senior Ray Haglund and Brian Bondiskey accounting for every point to tie the game 24-24. 

“Over the course of the season, we’ve overcome a lot of adversity, that’s what built up in the timeout,” Delp said. “I think we just wanted it more than them at the end of the day and that run kind of changed the game for us. I’m just proud of the guys.”

Breslin bailed the Falcons out, finishing a 12-point quarter with a driving finish in the final seconds for a 26-24 lead but as Pennsbury coach Wes Emme noted, the difference was Delp in the third quarter.

“We went to a lineup we haven’t played much, rarely are we on the floor without one of them (Clark and Jajua) and they were able to speed us up and made that little run to tie it,” Emme said. “Sean had a really nice drive at the end of the half to get us the lead then the best senior in the league had the best quarter of the year in a really important spot.”

Pennsbury opened the third with a three from Brady Kent, then Delp went to work. The 6-foot-3 senior, who has opted not to play in college, missed his first look of the period but got going on a nice back-cut and finish off a dish from Haglund about 90 seconds into the half.

“Nothing really changed, I knew I had to get my team going,” Delp said. “At times, we can get slow, so I just try to get the ball and get our team going because I think once our defense leans in, we get the momentum going and hit a couple shots, the whole game’s changed.”

All five of Delp’s baskets in the quarter were assisted by Haglund or Bondiskey and even with Pennsbury throwing different defenders or looks at him, the senior did the work to get open and his teammates kept finding him.

“If they were overplaying me, I like to do what’s best for the team, I can go be a screener,” Delp said. “If I’m not going to score, I’m going to do other things like screening that can free me up and just being put in the right positions by Coach and the right play calls by Ray Haglund, I was just going off of that and getting open shots for my teammates or myself.”

Delp used a personal 7-2 run, the first five tying the game and his second three of the quarter answering a Jajua hoop to put CR South in front 32-31, to give the Hawks a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. He scored five more, first on another cut to the rim fed by Haglund then on his third triple of the frame to get to 13, before Pennsbury scored again then finished the quarter going 4-of-4 to make it 17 for him and a 41-34 lead for CR South.

“That’s what great high school players do,” Cassidy said. “None of us on the bench were surprised. It wasn’t a matter of ‘if,’ it was a matter of ‘when.’ Ryan Delp’s one of the great players in the history of our school so for him to have that quarter, it wasn’t a surprise.”

Delp was the offensive catalyst in the third while Lucian Mirc was the defensive spark. The 6-foot-2 junior is already on the rise as one of the top high jumpers not only in the state, but the country, and is in the midst of a breakout year on the hardwood.

He had two emphatic blocks on Jajua in the midst of Delp’s offensive outburst and even after the game, Emme called Mirc “the most improved player” in the Patriot this season. It wasn’t just the junior wing making winning defensive plays and Mirc chalked it up to a change in attitude, both at that critical juncture in the second quarter but also one that emerged right around the time CR South got its winning streak going.

“It was our mental toughness,” Mirc said. “We used to be labeled as ‘Council Rock Soft’ and a few games ago, I think we changed that and it was our mental toughness that overcame that.”

Pennsbury, which entered the night No. 19 in the 6A rankings, is all but a lock to be in the playoffs but will have to go on the road to start its district run. Emme said the goal is to win two games and qualify for the state playoffs and after giving his team a little bit of a break mentally following this rough patch of games, that’s what the focus will be.

“I believe in this team as much as any team I’ve ever coached,” Emme said. “I believe in the talent, I believe in the group, I don’t think there’s a lot of weaknesses.

“They are fully capable of making a run so whether we do that or not is whether we can accept what just happened, put it behind us quickly and improve. I told them, I don’t think I did a good enough job making them a better team this year but if I’ve got a two-week stretch right now, you better believe I’m going to make them better for that playoff run.”

Wissahickon also won on Tuesday and with the Trojans still having two more games to play this week, CR South will still have to do some scoreboard watching as they prepare for Friday’s SOL Tournament quarterfinals against the top wildcard team in the eight-team field. 

As the Patriot division champion, the Golden Hawks will get one more home game, something Delp said was a nice bonus to add to the end of his career. The Hawks had a good student presence on Tuesday, something Mirc noted gave he and his teammates a lift and they got to return the favor by celebrating a division title with them at the final horn.

“After our last game at home, I thought it was my last time playing there as a senior so definitely playing there again is a huge thing for us,” Delp said. “We love our fans, the support they had today was a big factor and if we can continue that, it’s a whole game-changer for how good we can be as a team.”

~~~

By Quarter
CR SOUTH       8  | 16  |  17 |  13  ||  54
PENNSBURY  11 |  15  |   8  |  13  ||  47

Scoring
CRS: Ryan Delp 29, Lucian Mirc 11, Ray Haglund 7, Brian Bondisky 5, Joe Madera 2

P: Patrick Jajua 17, Sean Breslin 13, Brayden Clark 8, Brady Kent 6, Max Manga 3