City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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SHILLINGTON, Pa. -- For 24 minutes, Trinity couldn’t put away Parkway Center City.

Every punch the Shamrocks threw, the Bulldogs responded, sometimes with a few extra flurries of their own.

“We came out very strong in the first quarter, got up by eight and did a great job, and they countered as a heavyweight fighter would do and beat us up the second quarter and it’s tied,” Trinity coach Larry Kostelac said afterwards. “So we started right back at square one.”

The third quarter between the District 3 champs with their numerous Division I prospects and the small Philadelphia magnet school with a boys’ basketball program just two years old was closely-contested as well and it was a tie game with seven minutes remaining in the PIAA Class AA second-round matchup.

Then, finally, the knockout punch came, as it tends to do for the Shamrocks, from the 3-point arc.

First it was 6-foot-8 Mt. St. Mary’s commit Jack Vukelich, from the right wing.

Then, 6-4 sophomore Jack Bucher, less than 40 seconds later. And Vukelich again, from the corner across from his bench to make it a nine-point lead, all within a 90-second span.

And suddenly it was all but over, Trinity running away to a 67-48 win and spot in the state quarterfinals.

Those triples sparked a 17-2 run over a five-minute span, slamming the door shut on a Bulldogs squad that had certainly put a good scare into the Trinity faithful.

“Hitting three consecutive 3-point field goals has a tendency to get people going and that’s exactly what occurred," Kostelac said. "We got some folks loose, to our kids’ credit, they found the open man and our open man had the intestinal fortitude to put the ball in the basket and that was the difference in the game.”

That marks 10 wins in a row for a still fairly-young Shamrocks (21-6), for whom Vukelich (13 points) is the only senior in the team’s top eight scorers.

“I just think we’re starting to move as a cohesive unit, I think everyone’s really understand their roles, which is huge,” Vukelich said. “I didn’t even understand my role until late in the season, I’m finally starting to know what I can contribute to this team, how I can help us, which is good.”

Part of Vukelich’s role is certainly in the leadership department.

Three years ago, he was a role player on the last Trinity squad to make it this far in the state playoffs; that group lost to Holy Cross in the semifinals, while the last two years have ended in the first and second rounds, respectively.

“I just think I have to talk to every single person before the game, tell them what they have to do--’your man is very fast, stay in front of him,’” Vukelich said. “They’re a young group, but I think they’re very mature, I think they’re learning very well. They have a lot of varsity experience even though they’re not necessarily old in age.”

Junior guard Austin Gilbertson powered the Shamrocks early and late, dropping 14 of his game-high 28 in the opening quarter to help his team out to an 18-10 lead. The 6-foot-3 guard added five more in the third and then tacked on nine foul shots to help seal the win.

Parkway Center City responded in the second quarter, scoring the first dozen points to go up by 22-18 midway through the period on a 3-pointer by Amir Hill (team-high 17 points).

The Bulldogs, whose students previously played with Franklin Learning Center until last year, have already won three state playoff games in their first two years. Lewis, a 6-3 wing, graduates, but head coach Terrance Puckett does return his starting backcourt of juniors Jamal Sheppard and Tymir Cooper, who combined for 17 points in the loss.

“(They’ll) come back next year hungry and know what it takes to go a little further,” Puckett said. “This is only our second year of varsity, we went one game further than we went last year, I’m proud of the kids, we worked hard.”

Trinity gets another Public League "C" squad, Mastery Charter North (25-3), in the quarterfinals on Saturday at a location and time TBD.

"I like where we are, because we’re young we keep getting better every night out," Kostelac said. "The sky’s the limit for these kids, the only thing we’re guaranteed is that we play on Saturday. We’ll get in the gym this week on Thursday and Friday and get ready to play Saturday, and we can’t be any happier than that.”

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Wednesday's Results

Class AA -- Second Round
Conwell-Egan 54, Minersville 51
Camp Hill 45, Wilkes-Barre Meyers 40
Mastery Charter North 85, Danville 52
Trinity 67, Parkway Center City 48
Aliquippa 56, Bishop Canevin 38
West Middlesex 55, Penns Valley 52
Lincoln Park 76, Washington 73
Quaker Valley 57, Greensburg Central Catholic 47

Class AAAA -- Second Round
Plymouth-Whitemarsh 58, Bangor 44
Simon Gratz 64, J.P. McCaskey 56
Parkland 54, Ridley 50
Roman Catholic 60, Central Bucks West 41
Reading 71, Emmaus 54
Chester 74, Spring-Ford 49
Carlisle 74, North Hills 69
Taylor Allderdice 75, Pine-Richland 60