City of Basketball Love

Anthony Dabbundo (@AnthonyDabbundo)
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From the opening tip, Spring-Ford forward Cameron Reid’s height and length left Perkiomen Valley searching for answers.

By the time the second half rolled around, it was clear that Perk Valley had no answer to Reid’s length and athleticism on the inside. The 6-foot-5 forward used his size to dominate on the glass and pick up easy buckets en route to lead his Rams teammates to a 62-47 win over their archrivals.

“Coach always tells me that I need to get at it and dominate down low, and tonight I did that,” the senior standout said.

Reid finished with a double-double, 26 points and 14 rebounds, towering over the undersized Vikings’ frontcourt and even stepping out to hit three of his five three point attempts.

“Tonight, we challenged him to go make a living on the offensive glass, and to his credit he did that tonight,” Rams head coach Chris Talley said. “We can’t get Cam to shoot enough.”

Defensively, the senior forward was a force to be reckoned with, altering many of the Vikings’ attempts in the paint, registering four blocks on the night and affecting many more.

“I think I really altered a lot of their shots with my length, and forced them into some really tough shots,” Reid said.

The big man’s presence forced Perk Valley into jump shots, where they struggled for the entire night, shooting only 3-19 from beyond the three point arc.

After the hot start by Spring-Ford, which found them up 13-4 in the early going, the Vikings got away from their identity and gameplan and settled for poor shots as players tried to do too much at the offensive end.

“Cam is tough to guard, and they played really well as a team, but we did not execute our gameplan at all tonight,” Vikings head coach Mike Poysden said.

Poysden was very unhappy with his team in the early going, as the Rams were able to dictate the pace of the game. Instead of a slow paced halfcourt game, which favored the Vikings, the Rams forced their tempo early and forced their rivals to play their style.

Despite the Vikings’ efforts to match up on Reid, it was far too easy for him to step out and get open looks, grab offensive rebounds at will, or pass out of the block to open shooters.

“We needed to account for him better,” Poysden said. “We lost track of him too many times and he’s a great player and took advantage.”

After the quick start, the Rams never really looked back, as Perk Valley never generated enough outside of junior guard Justin Jaworski. Even though Jaworski scored 27 points to lead all scorers, they received no offense from the supporting cast.

Senior Sean Moriarity and junior Sean Owens struggled to get going as they were a combined 4-20 from the field and 0-10 from three, which was exactly what Talley and the Rams were hoping to do.

While Jaworski got to the line 11 times, made three 3s, and got to the rim at will, the Rams made sure he was the only one to consistently score.

“Our goal was to limit everybody else, because Jaworski is going to get his,” Talley added. “As a whole, our team defense on everyone else was really good.”

Even as the Vikings came out of the second half with more energy and intensity, holding Spring-Ford to only 10 points in the third quarter, they simply could not score enough on their own to keep up with the Rams’ fast paced offense.

Unlike the Vikings, the Rams received plenty of contributions outside of Reid. Even on an off night for usual leading scorer Matt Gnias, the Rams generated offense thanks to senior wing Nigel Cooke and junior guard Charles Drummond who scored 16 and 9 points, ensuring that the Rams would remain unbeaten at 5-0 in PAC-10 play.

In what was a big rivalry game, the Vikings 4th year head coach was unhappy with the team’s performance. But, with Cam Reid playing as well as he was, the Vikings chances were always going to be low. He created a mismatch with his performance that Perk Valley was unable to recover from.

For the Rams, if they get these types of dominant performances from Reid consistently, then they are surely the favorite in the PAC-10 and a  team to watch out for in the District 1 playoffs.

And if they are to make a run at a state bid, star senior forward Cameron Reid is going to be at the center of it.