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Chester ends Prep's run in state playoffs

03/20/2013, 10:15pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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As expected, Chester advanced to the PIAA Class AAAA state championship game on Tuesday night with a win over St. Joseph’s Prep.

What wasn’t so expected was how tough it was for the Clippers to get past the Hawks.

Stephen Vasturia had 19 points for Prep, who put a good scare into the two-time defending state championships before Chester held on for a 62-53 win at Coatesville high school.

Chester sas more size and athleticism than any team in Pennsylvania, with Arizona-bound Rondae Jefferson (18 points, 11 rebounds) and athletic scoring guard Darius Robinson (12 points) leading a team that had won by an average of 20 points per game over the first three rounds of the tournament.

Against a Prep team that starts five players all 6-foot-5 and shorter, all five of whom are more comfortable out on the perimeter than in the paint, the bruising combination of Jefferson and Richard Granberry (14 points) seemed to present a matchup nightmare for Hawk coach Speedy Morris.

“That’s the best team I’ve ever played in high school,” Prep wing Miles Overton said. “They’re talented (at) every position.”

But Prep’s ACC-bound duo of Vasturia (Notre Dame) and Overton (Wake Forest) weren’t going to bow down that easily.

When Prep starting point guard P.J. Kelly fouled out just a minute into the fourth quarter with his team down 13, it looked like all hope was lost. But sophomore Chris Clover, knocked out for most of the first half after an elbow to the face bloodied his nose and blackened his eye, scored seven of his 10 points in the fourth quarter to help close the gap to as little as seven, putting some serious doubt into the large Chester contingent.

“That hurt us,” Morris said of Clover’s injury, “because he made us better defensively. They were up nine at half, he came back in the second half and scored 10 points. He did a good job.”

The victory wasn’t in hand for Chester until the final 90 seconds.

“I’m very happy,” Morris said. “We had an opportunity, we just didn’t make shots. I think they’re the best team in the state. I’m proud of our guys.”

Vasturia did much of his damage from beyond the arc, with four treys; the 6-5 combo guard also added eight rebounds. Overton finished with 16, including eight in the final two minutes of the game. Those two, along with Kelly, will leave quite large shoes for Morris to try fill next season.

“Any time you lose quality kids, it’s sad, it’s a bittersweet thing,” Morris said. “They’ve gotta move on, but I’ll miss them. I’ll miss them very much.”

Vasturia finished his career with a school-record 1,764 points while Overton leaves with 1,133, eighth on Prep’s all-time scoring list.

After Chester jumped out to a 13-6 lead, forcing Morris to call two first-quarter timeouts, 3-pointers by Vasturia and Kyle Thompson (six points) helped close the gap to three after one period. Prep would tie the game at 17–and though they would never lead again, they also never let the game get out of hand.

It nearly got that way though when Chester when on their usual big third-quarter push. After Prep had cut a nine-point halftime lead to six, a 9-0 run by the Clippers seemed to take all the energy out of the Hawks bench.

Still, when all was said and done, it was difficult for the Prep players to be too upset. The school had never won a PIAA state playoff game prior to this season, and there’s certainly no shame in losing to one of the best programs not just in the region but the entire nation over the last several years.

“It was a great season, nobody expected us to go this far,” Overton said. “’m proud of our guys, we played hard, this is the best team in the state and I think we gave them a run for their money a little bit. There were no negatives this season.”