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Germantown Academy upends Haverford in thriller

02/03/2015, 7:30pm EST

By Jeff Neiburg

Devon Goodman hit the game-winning layup to lift GA past Haverford. (Photo: Josh Verlin)

Jeff Neiburg (@Jeff_Neiburg)
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Jim Fenerty said sometimes it pays off to be old. Henry Fairfax was left perplexed.

One coach was left celebrating when the buzzer sounded, the other demoralized by a late-game collapse and a ruling he felt was questionable.

With 2 minutes, 22 seconds to play, Haverford School forward Lamar Stevens was fouled hard by Germantown Academy’s Sam Lindgren. Stevens laid under the basket for a moment, which caused Haverford assistant coach Levan Alston - father of star senior Levan “Shawn” Alston - to leave the bench to check on Stevens.

The referee’s originally ruled Stevens would be forced to come off the court since he was “attended” to by a coach.

Not so fast, said Fenerty, who marched to the scorers table and persisted that a technical foul be assessed.

The officials met and ruled that Stevens, who wasn’t injured, would remain on the court and a technical foul be issued to Haverford for having a coach on the floor.

Momentum was already on Germantown’s side, and the call helped complete a wild, come-from-behind, 60-57 win over Haverford.

The win sets Germantown Academy up with a winner-take-all matchup with Episcopal Friday night for the Inter-Ac title.

“The bottom line is, when there’s an injury on the court, I can’t come out on the floor until I’m waved on,” Fenerty said.

Both coaches, understandably, had a different opinion on the implications of the ruling. Stevens made 1-of-2 from the line, putting Haverford up 53-47. But Tim Guers knocked down both free throws on the other end.

“My assistant left the bench to check on an injured player,” Fairfax said. “Lamar fell on his back earlier in the season, his natural reaction as someone that cares about kids is to check on him to see if he’s OK. Originally it was assessed as [Lamar] has to come off.

“I didn’t know that you could have a discussion, a dialogue, a negotiation about how that is to play out. All of the sudden they assess a technical on our bench for checking on a kid. Ultimately we’re charged with protecting our boys and making sure they’re OK and that was his first instinct.”

“I don’t think that changed the game,” Fenerty said. “I think what happened is, we just kept playing. I don’t think that cost them the game, I don’t think that gave us the game, I think we still had to make plays and that’s what we did.”

That's exactly what they did.

After Alston missed a dunk following a GA miss after the technical fiasco, Germantown junior Devon Goodman drilled a triple with 1:50 to play to get his team within one, 53-52.

The 5-foot-10 guard wasn’t done.

The Fords were inbounding the ball from midcourt with 30.5 seconds left following a Fenerty timeout. The play was drawn up for Alston, who was double-teamed. An errant pass from Reddish was deflected and found the hands of Goodman, who raced to the rim with two defenders trailing and put Germantown ahead for the first time in the second half.

“I knew Shawn was coming from behind me and Micah [Sims] was right there in front of me,” Goodman said. “I don’t know how it went in but I just went to the basket strong and made the layup.”

“We just said, we’re going to double Shawn,” Fenerty said when asked what the message was in the timeout. “It’s one of those games where my guys just didn’t quit. We doubled him, we got that steal and Devon goes in, and as soon as he does that fancy stuff my heart goes in my mouth, but he made it.”

Alston, who was running the show practically alone when Stevens fouled out with 1:28 left, missed two tough baskets at the rim down the stretch and GA held on for the win.

Reddish hit a 3-pointer with 4:46 left to put Haverford up 51-41. From there, Germantown closed the game on a 19-6 run.

“Throughout the whole season we’ve been through these kind of games where it’s been tight throughout the end of the game,” Goodman said. “We just keep our composure, play hard and that’s what we did. The last two minutes of the game we played harder than them and came out with a win.”

Goodman led GA (20-5, 8-1 Inter-Ac) with 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting. Kyle McCloskey, who usually starts but was a little under the weather, added 16 points off the bench. Guers scored 12 points while Evan-Eric Longino scored seven of his eight points in the fourth quarter and grabbed seven boards.

Haverford (14-10, 6-3) was led by the Temple-bound Alston, who finished with a game-high 24 points on 11-for-22 shooting. The senior almost single-handedly kept Haverford’s Inter-Ac title hopes alive with 16 second half points, including a stretch in the third quarter and early in the fourth where he scored 14 of Haverford’s 16 points in a 16-10 run to help build a 10-point lead.

But that’s where it all came unglued.

“The whole game I thought I would have to play well for us to win,” Alston said. “As a senior, as a captain, I just thought it was my responsibility to have the ball at the end.”

Stevens, who was in foul trouble most of the night, scored 10 points and collected a game-high 11 rebounds before fouling out. He was joined in double figures by Reddish, who scored 14 points. Sims, the tiny junior off-guard, grabbed seven rebounds, all on the offensive end, while scoring three points. Senior Derek Mountain, who committed to Holy Cross to play football yesterday, tallied six points and grabbed eight rebounds.

“I feel most upset and hurt for my seniors,” Fairfax said. “I thought Shawn played his heart out, I thought Derek played his heart out, I thought Micah played his heart out and he’s just a junior. I thought my group just played their hearts out.”

“The game changed when they got in the bonus. If they went on a 19-6 run, half of them came from the foul line. Those are awarded points.”

Eight of GA’s final 11 points came from the free throw line from the time of the technical foul to the buzzer.

The de facto Inter-Ac final on Friday night is reunion of sorts for Fenerty and Episcopal coach Craig Conlin. Conlin served as an assistant at GA for 14 years; Fenerty said the two are best friends.

“He and I are just probably going to go out to dinner Friday night with our wives and let the assistant coaches coach it and then figure it out from there,” Fenerty joked.

For Haverford, the season finale against Malvern will wrap up a third-place finish. The Fords haven't won the league since 1999, when Fairfax was a player at the school. After that, they'll set their sights on the Pa. Independent Schools state basketball tournament, where they'll look to finish strong.

“Tried, true and tested, we’ll be right there ready to go and ready to compete," Fairfax said.

“It hurts not to win an Inter-Ac title, but everything happens for a reason," Alston said. "That’s how I look at it. Maybe it wasn’t meant for us to get it this year but we still have states to try and go out with something.”