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Germantown Academy's fourth Inter-Ac title most meaningful yet

02/12/2016, 3:30pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Devon Goodman (20) led Germantown Academy to its fourth-straight Inter-Ac title. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Germantown Academy’s fourth straight Inter-Ac title was the toughest yet.

Though head coach Jim Fenerty’s Patriots all but wrapped up the six-team, playoff-less league by beating Episcopal Academy last Friday, it wasn’t until GA beat Malvern Prep 68-56 on Thursday afternoon that it became official.

“Yesterday, just winning the game it was like ‘we did this,’ I’m real, real proud of these guys because I felt like not a lot of people knew the kind of back-scene or whatever it was, motivation was driving us this year,” Fenerty said over the phone Friday morning. “It wasn’t the pressure that anybody else was putting on us, it was the pressure that we were putting on ourselves.”

The obvious pressure for this year’s group was just the weight of the three teams that came before them.

But this group was also playing for Bobby Taggart, a Germantown Academy student who lost his battle with cancer just before the season began. A basketball player at GA during his middle-school years, Taggart was allowed to dress for the varsity squad as a sophomore in 2013-14, and though his illness kept him from doing so as a junior, he had big plans for his final year.

“At the end of his junior year, he said ‘coach, I’m going to get back and score a basket,” Fenerty said. “I was hoping that the very first game, we were going to set that up for him, but he never made it to that point.

“I was worried the whole time because I felt like the kids were playing for a lot of other people and they really dedicated their season to Bobby,” he continued. “I was always worried, I felt there was way more pressure on them, that they were putting on themselves. They had to win four straight, they wanted to do it for Bobby--all great reasons--but they  handled it a lot better than I ever expected, I’m just really proud of them.”

According to local hoops historian Ted Silary, no Inter-Ac team has won as many consecutive outright titles since Penn Charter won five straight from 1940-44.

For senior guard Devon Goodman, the only player to see varsity minutes for all four squads, it’s the completion of a goal that began when he was a freshman.

“It’s amazing to win four titles,” he said. “It’s just really special that we got to get four, especially for our seniors, because our freshman year we said we wanted to win four and we finally did it yesterday.”

Goodman, a 5-11 point guard bound for Penn next year, paced GA with 19.8 ppg, though he also had plenty of help from a pair of players who will be leading the Patriots next season: wings Evan-Eric Longino (15.4 ppg) and Kyle McCloskey (14.2 ppg). Also graduating will be NYU-bound center Joe Stinson and future Colgate walk-on Gabe Alter, who came back from two years missed with injuries to average 6.5 ppg as a senior.

But it's not like Fenerty and the Patriots haven't shown they can replace key classes and keep the train rolling.

First there was the class of nine seniors that took home the 2013 Pennsylvania Independent School (PAISAA) state championship after an unbeaten run through the Inter-Ac.

“They taught me a lot, especially Nick,” Goodman said. “Playing under him my freshman year, he taught me a lot, we worked out together a lot. I learned from him, playing behind him, and the level of intensity those seniors played with that year, they didn’t take anything lightly, and that’s why they went undefeated in the Inter-Ac that year.”

They were followed by two years of a program which, led by current college freshmen Tim Guers (St. Anselm’s) and Sam Lindgren (Colgate), went 18-2 in Inter-Ac play, beating the favored Haverford School and current Temple freshman Levan Alston, Jr. in both 2014 and 2015.

Next year, it'll be Longino and McCloskey, plus classmates Cole Storm and and Josh Brownstein, who will have to follow in Goodman, Alter, Stinson and company's footsteps to bring home another trophy.

"Last night when the game was over, I had my five juniors and they’re all looking at me and saying ‘what do you think about five?’" Fenerty said. "I said ‘five sounds like a good number to me, but we’ve got a lot of work to do to get to that point.’”


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