City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Parkland head coach Andy Stephens calls senior Jack Dreisbach the “ultimate glue guy,” saying he’ll do whatever’s needed to help his team.

Case in point: with senior point guard Devante Cross still recovering from a knee injury suffered on the football field, Dreisbach is playing point guard for a team that’s just welcoming back many of its top players from that PIAA runner-up football team.

Against La Salle on Monday night, Dreisbach did more than just run Parkland’s offense. His 10 points included a huge 3-pointer to help the Trojans come up with a big 63-53 win over the Explorers in the championship game of the Scholastic Play-By-Play Parkland Holiday Classic.

It was a matchup of two programs currently ranked in CoBL’s PIAA Class AAAA rankings, and the game did not disappoint.

“I know we were pumped up for this game because they were the sixth team in the state, we’re tenth, and we want to prove ourselves a bit,” Dreisbach said. “It’s good to play against these teams early because we’ll probably see them down the road. It feels good to get a win over them like that.”

La Salle (7-1) held all the momentum early, going up 9-0 and leading 20-9 after one quarter as junior guard Jarrod Stukes caused serious issues for the Parkland ball-handlers, Dreisbach included.

But the Trojans opened the second quarter with a 7-0 run to get back into things, and only a Matt Paulus 3-pointer at the buzzer gave La Salle a 27-26 lead at the half.

Dreisbach delivered the pivotal Parkland moment exactly eight minutes later, with Parkland (6-3) inbounding under their own basket and five seconds on the clock; Dreisback took the inbounds pass and raced upcourt, giving him enough time to wait for a defender to fly by on a pump fake before his 3-pointer at the buzzer made it a 41-37 game entering the fourth quarter.

“I knew they were going to overplay it...so I thought I’d pump fake, they bit on it and I just shot it, and it went in,” he said. “I don’t practice that, the pump-and shoot, but it went in.”

“The difference between one and four points in the fourth quarter of a high school game, it means something,” Stephens added.

That four-point advantage quickly became nine thanks to buckets by the team's stars, a 3-pointer from junior forward Sam Iorio and layup by senior wing Kyle Stout, a Lafayette commit.

Five minutes later, with Parkland's lead down to six, Iorio came up with the dagger, a tough left-handed finish plus the foul; just seconds later, La Salle head coach Joe Dempsey was whistled for a technical foul, and two more Iorio foul shots made it a 57-46 lead with 2:27 remaining.

Though Dreisbach, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound guard, was a key member of the rotation last year on a Parkland squad that made it to the second round of the PIAA Class AAAA tournament and is a full-time starter this season, he’s not quite the first option on the Trojans’ scouting report. Iorio (21 points) and Stout (15 points, 10 rebounds) both command a lot of attention, and showed why on Monday night.

Dreisbach is perfectly fine with flying under the radar.

“I know (opponents are) always looking for Kyle and Sam, and I know they can score so I just try to get them open, get them a lot of shots and they usually convert for us,” he said. “It’s nice to know we have Kyle and Sam and other players like that who can knock down shots on a consistent basis.”

Stukes earned team MVP honors for La Salle with 11 points, while Paulus had a team-high 12 points, including two 3-pointers.

This was the third game back for those members of Parkland’s hoops team who also star on the gridiron. Aside from Cross--a 6-3 guard who had Division I offers for hoops but is picking from several high-major football options who want him to be their quarterback--the Trojans’ two-way players include Yeboah, committed to play football at Temple, plus key reserve Zach Bross.

Without them, Parkland played Archbishop Carroll to a seven-point loss in early December. Now, not even at full strength, they dealt a very good La Salle team a double-digit loss. Soon, they’re expected to get Cross back, perhaps as soon as their next game: Jan. 5 against Emmaus.

By March, they could be scary good.

“They’re such good athletes, it doesn’t take them that long to get into the basketball flow, what takes time is the unity and the chemistry and the team thing,” Stephens said. “Piece by piece, we’re just taking it piece by piece.”

Consolation Game: George Washington vs. Liberty
At first, George Washington played too slow. Then they played too fast.

Eventually, the Eagles found their rhythm.

What was a closely-contested game over the opening 24 minutes became a George Washington rout, as the Eagles dominated Liberty in the fourth quarter of a 62-40 win.

Early on, it looked like Liberty would be the one with a double-digit victory, as the Hurricanes scored the first 10 points of the game and led 14-4 after one quarter of play. A Washington offense that held the ball for more than 90 seconds on its first possession looked unsure of when to attack the Liberty defense, and that pace played perfectly into the hands of the Lehigh Valley squad.

“Last night after playing Parkland and not being smart and getting good possessions, I think they were being too passive, being too unselfish,” Washington head coach Kyle Sample said. “Sometimes they just get stagnant and they don’t understand that sometimes aggression is good, just make the right decision when you’re aggressive.”

The Eagles woke up in the second quarter and rallied back to tie it at 24 head into the locker rooms, and a 10-0 run in the third helped them to go into the fourth up 36-33.

George Washington’s pressure and athleticism finally overwhelmed Liberty in the final eight minutes; a Saleem Brown 3-point play with 4:49 remaining made it a 50-37 lead, and that was only the midway point of a 22-2 run that slammed the door shut over the final 6:30.

“We’re a really good team when we play together,” Sample said. “Slow starts and not being prepared to play all the time, that just comes with maturity.”

Brown, a sophomore wing, finished with 11 points a day after going for 19 in a loss to Parkland, while junior guard Shaheed Fagan-Haynes registered 13 points and six steals.

The Eagles did a good job of limiting a tall ‘Canes frontcourt that featured 6-8 senior Andrew Hudak and 6-7 junior Cameron Hoffman; Hoffman scored a team-high 13 for the ‘Canes but Hudak was barely a factor with just four.

Senior wing Quadere Allen and junior forwards Elijah Kiah-El and Alex Smith all came up with big rebounds and buckets down the stretch for Washington.

“I think our frontcourt is a lot bigger and a lot better than how it seems,” Sample said. “I think this year, every game our bigs are going to get better.”