City of Basketball Love

Anthony Dabbundo (@AnthonyDabbundo) &
Justin Allen (@JAllen_town)
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Not many people gave Perkiomen Valley a chance. Many thought that previously undefeated Phoenixville would have no trouble beating a Perk Valley team that had struggled through most of the PAC-10 with multiple losses to Methacton and a loss at Boyertown.

Boy were they wrong.

From start to finish, Perkiomen Valley never trailed, controlled the flow of the game, and shot above 50 percent from the field en route to a 57-48 upset win over the PAC-10 regular season champion Phantoms.

“Not many people gave us a chance in this game,” Vikings star Justin Jaworski said. “But we believe that we have a chance in every gym that we play in, and that showed right from the beginning as we were comfortable and relaxed.”

Other than a few late scares in the fourth as Phoenixville attempted to close the gap, the game was never in doubt.

Riding the hot hand of Jaworski, Perkiomen Valley jumped out to an early 11-3 lead, as the Vikings were 3-of-3 from three in the first quarter. The hot start allowed the Vikings to play the game at their own pace, slowing it down as much as possible.

“We knew we had to come out hot and get some quick ones so we could implement our plan the way we want to play,” Vikings head coach Mike Poysden said.

Poysden’s team then locked in at the defensive end, frustrating Phoenixville with a matchup zone and holding the high powered Phantoms offense to just 13 first half points.

In a battle of two of the league’s top scorers, both Phoenixville star Christian Kelly and Jaworski got their fair share of points, scoring 21 and 23 respectively.

“Kelly is going to get his,” Jaworski said. “But we had to play well with our matchup zone and be there for their other guys. We had to stop everybody else.”

But for the Vikings, it was the contributions from senior Cullen O’Connor and juniors Sean Owens  that made the difference. With Owens scoring 15 points on some timely shooting, and O’Connor’s 6-11 shooting performance, their contributions were key in the upset

“Justin and Sean get all the attention, and we needed Cullen to step up and fill a role, and he had a wonderful game,” Poysden said. “I thought he had one of the best games of his career,  if not the best.”

Outside of Kelly, the Phoenixville offense sputtered for most of the evening. Shooting just 16-of-44 from the field, and 5-for-15 from three, the Phantoms were never able to generate any rhythm due to Perk Valley’s slow paced offense and pack it in defensive strategy.

“We simply lost to the better team tonight,” Phoenixville coach Eric Burnett said. “They were 9-2 in their last 11 games and executed better than us.”

Down 35-22 after three quarters, Phoenixville came out in the fourth quarter throwing the kitchen sink at Perk Valley. The press defense forced some turnovers and the lead was as low as four points after a Kelly slam dunk with 3:38 left.

No matter what the lead was, whenever the Vikings needed a bucket, they managed to beat the press and get some timely points.

“We took care of the ball really well,” Poysden said. “I thought we handled the pressure more than not, and got some easy points because of it.”

After Phil Meszaros hit a three for the Phantoms to get it to 4 with 2:00 left, Perkiomen Valley got an easy lay up for O’Connor to extend the lead and keep Phoenixville just out of reach.

The Vikings now move on to Tuesday night’s PAC-10 Championship, against archrival Spring-Ford in a gym that has brought them much success over the past few years.

As recently as last Friday, Perk Valley won at Spring-Ford in a must win situation to make the Final Four.

In 2013,  the Vikings snuck into the Final Four only to upset Methacton to take the title on Spring-Ford’s floor.

Now, Perk Valley will have an opportunity to grab another huge win, pulling off another upset title, just like that 2013 team.

“You can’t help but notice the similarities [to 2013],” Poysden said.  “Starting slow, and getting hot at the right time.”

For a team that has now won 5 of its last 6 games and 10 of its last 12, it’s safe to say that this Perkiomen Valley team is peaking at the right time.

-Anthony Dabbundo

Spring-Ford vs. Pope John Paul II

Spring-Ford may have found itself on the losing end of its final two regular season games, but a week of practice made a world of difference for the Rams during a 62-30 victory over Pope John Paul II in the second game of the semifinal doubleheader.

“When the season’s in the grind, you have game, practice, game, practice,” Spring-Ford coach Chris Talley said.  “It can be tough to find your legs, but we had a great week of practice.”

The well-rested and well-prepared Rams exploded out of the gates at the start of the game, jumping out a 12-point advantage before the midway point of the first quarter.

Senior guard Nigel Cooke paced Spring-Ford’s offense from the opening whistle, scoring 10 of his game-high 18 points during the first quarter.

“We really wanted to help each other,” Cooke said. “We let our offense feed off of our defense and that helped in transition.”

The Rams pushed the pace to a level that was uncomfortable to Pope John Paul, getting several buckets off of turnovers and long outlet passes. Meanwhile, Matt Gnias and Nestor Diaz helped Spring-Ford excel in the halfcourt offense, as well.

Gnias scored 16 points and dished out six assists as part of a successful drive-and-kick offense that resulted in the Rams shooting 10-of-14 (71%) from three point range. Diaz also registered three assists.

“We shared the basketball really well,” Talley said. “That’s something that we didn’t do against Phoenixville or Perk Valley. When we were on our runs, that’s something we did very well.”

Pope John Paul was held in check offensively by Spring-Ford and was limited to just 11-of-44 (25%) from the floor.

Rich Dunham Jr., who entered averaging 19.2 ppg, was held to just 11 points.

“Coach wanted us all to pitch in and help on Rich Dunham,” Cooke said. “He’s the second leading scorer in the league therefore we needed everyone to pitch in and play team defense.”

Charles Drummond had perhaps his best defensive game of the season, closing out on several of Dunham’s shot attempts. Drummond finished with three blocks and a pair of steals.

“Obviously losing is never acceptable, but I felt like our guys competed for the entire game,” PJP coach Jack Flanagan said.

Spring-Ford will now face Perkiomen Valley for the Pac-10 Championship on Tuesday, as it looks to avenge its most recent loss--a loss that put PV into the league semifinals. --Justin Allen