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Remolde provides spark as La Salle HS runs past Haverford School

12/08/2015, 6:30pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Dan Remolde's defense (above) was a big reason why La Salle ran away with a 52-33 win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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When La Salle head coach Joe Dempsey implored his team to turn up the defensive pressure against the Haverford School in a game the Explorers trailed by four at the half, Dan Remolde took it personally.

“I know when he’s talking defense that it’s me and then everyone else,” he said. “I have to bring everyone else’s intensity level up when I go in there on defense.”

Led by the senior forward’s presence, La Salle started turning Haverford over, going on a monster run that lasted the entire second half of a 52-33 win.

A 6-foot-3, 190-pound wing forward, Remolde was everywhere on the defensive end for the Explorers, manning the middle of their press defense and taking advantage of every opportunity he could to force a double team.

The two points he also contributed were nowhere near representative of his impact on the other end of the floor, where he had three steals and helped spur a 24-4 stretch that lasted from the beginning of the third quarter until midway through the fourth.

“I don’t want to take all the credit, but I always try my hardest on defense,” he said. “I’m more of a defense-first person and I tried to go out there and do the best I could, I came off of one whenever I could to double team, I think I did pretty well."

“His energy is what is key because we feed off him,” Dempsey said. “The other guys are quote-unquote ‘more skilled’ than him but he’s just tough, he’s a city kid, just somebody that the guys respect and it starts with him.”

La Salle (3-0) was led offensively by senior wing Ryan McTamney, who benefitted from quite a few of those turnovers as he got almost the entire of his 20 points off layups, many coming from feeds by junior guard Jarrod Stukes (six assists) and Matt Paulus (three assists).

Paulus also scored 11 of his 12 points during the fourth quarter, including three 3-pointers that helped put the game away as the Explorers expanded their lead from two to 19 over the final eight minutes.

“He’s not a streak shooter, he’s a good shooter, I’ll have him take a shot any night,” Dempsey said. “I knew once he saw the first one go through, we were in a lot better shape because we’re going to need him to make 3s for sure.”

A Northeast Philadelphia native, Remolde bided his time during his first three seasons at La Salle, earning MVP honors of the JV team as a junior while seeing scant varsity minutes.

That patience is certainly paying off, as Remolde has become a full-time starter.

“We had two amazing teams and I knew I had to wait my place, I wasn’t going to leave and go somewhere else to try and play,” he said. “I wanted to wait my turn, just worked my hardest every day at practice to show Coach Dempsey I’m waiting.”

Remolde is hoping to continue his basketball career beyond high school, something neither of his parents did; his father played two years at Roman Catholic while his mother played at Mount Saint Joseph’s. He named  Delaware Valley, Immaculata, Moravian and Rosemont as local Division III schools who’d been reaching out.

The Explorers were plenty familiar with new Fords head coach Bernie Rodgers thanks to the 14 years he spent at Catholic League rival Archbishop Ryan prior to coming to the Main Line prep school this offseason. And he brought with him his Princeton offense, slowing down the pace in the first half, which ended with a 21-15 Haverford lead.

Haverford’s two sophomore guards, Kharon Randolph and Joey Dignazio, handled the pressure initially, but the second half proved to be too much for a pair who’s still adjusting to big minutes at the varsity level and playing against top Catholic League programs.

“I think their experience got to us a little bit and we made some bad decisions with the ball and probably should have attacked it a little better and got some layups,” Rogers said. “It’s a learning experience, absolutely.”

Randolph, a 5-10 guard, finished with 13 points, including a number of tough finishes early on for Haverford (3-2), while senior big man Jack Marshall had six points and battled inside for 10 rebounds.

It’s been a good start to the season for the Fords, who’ve already beat the Hun School and Father Judge in the first two weeks of the year. That's despite graduating Temple freshman Levan Alston Jr. and losing two more-high major prospects to transfer and returning very little experience from a year ago in general.

“I think it’s going to be a process, and I think we’ve done some really good things,” Rogers said. “Even in today’s game, we had really good spurts and really bad spurts. If we can tighten those bad spurts up a little bit we’re going to be alright.”


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