City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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LANCASTER — Apparently, those involved with Lancaster Catholic’s successful basketball program like to play word association games — whether during a practice session, before the season and, heck, even during the halftime break.

And whatever Joe Klazas’ Crusaders seem to come up with at any of those particular moments, whether players or coaches, each and every noun and adjective serves a purpose.

Yet there’s another word that works quite nicely some two nights into the 2016-17 campaign and it’s an oh-so-familiar yet positive one … and that’s winners.

Getting 12 points apiece from Sean Landis and R.J. Van Tash — the 6-5 Landis also pocketed 11 rebounds — Klazas’ feisty Crusaders moved to 2-0 by fending off equally feisty Central York 59-57 in the championship game of Lancaster Catholic’s season-opening Tip-Off Tournament Saturday night at home.

Solanco decked Penn Manor 59-30 in the third-place game.

Courtney Batts rang up 20 points and Garrett Markey chimed in with 11 for Kevin Schieler’s Panthers (1-1), who trailed by seven points (56-49) with a shade under a minute to go after Van Tash stuck back a missed shot.

Several tense moments later, yet trailing by merely a deuce, Batts’ last-ditch heave from a step or so inside the midcourt stripe came up just short.

“We knew we definitely wanted to defend our home court, especially in our first out in our Tip-Off Tournament,” a grinning Landis said. “We didn’t want the plaque to leave here. We put in a lot of work. We just didn’t want it to leave.”

Well, since the Crusaders (2-0) were able to complete a weekend sweep that began with Friday's decisive win over Penn Manor (75-44), the plaque’s not going anywhere.

In all likelihood, neither are the word games.

“From the beginning of the season, we’ve talked about having poise the whole season long,” continued Landis, making reference to the 21-13 deficit Catholic was staring at as the midway point of the second quarter approached only to head into the lockers knotted up at 23-all.

“We know nobody worked harder than us to get to our spot,” added Landis of a Crusaders bunch that returned four starters. “We probably played 50 offseason games, because we wanted this season really bad. We just fought back in and wanted it all.”

Although Landis dropped the word poise during his post-game thoughts, the burly senior with the quick first step heard another timely word during a brief halftime chat with Klazas, one that also fit a number of Crusaders as they willed their way to a win.

All three of Landis’ field goals came in the third and fourth quarters, either on stickbacks or by facing up and taking his defender off the bounce.

“We used the word of the day and it was contribute,” Klazas said afterward. “We said there’s different ways in different games that you can contribute. That was our big word and yesterday we used the word change in the sense that there were things that we needed to change in order to get better results.

“And today, we said you’re gonna see some different things and people are scouting us a little bit more now that you’re into the season. They’re gonna play us different, so you’re gonna have to contribute in different ways at different times.

“I had that talk with Sean Landis, because he only scored four points [in the first half] off foul shots, but he made the difference at the defensive end getting rebounds and by attacking the rim like that,” Klazas added.

Hey, nothing came easy for either side since just about every look was contested throughout a highly entertaining 32 minutes.

Although Catholic was sitting on a six-point advantage (53-47) with 2:29 to play when Jon Ware turned a Chad Wenger dish into a finish at the rim, the 5-11 Ware was called for a technical foul that provided Central with an immediate chance to answer.

Markey bagged both freebies — the Panthers followed by missing four straight at the line — but Landis made the back end of his two-shot look and Van Tash’s stickback had Catholic up seven with 56 seconds showing on the clock and the crowd roaring.

Batts then sandwiched a pair of treys around another Landis freebie to pull Central within a pair (57-55) with a hair over 20 seconds to go. Wenger tacked on another foul shot, but Batts answered with a 15-foot leaner that made it 58-57 with 7.5 ticks showing.

“That’s a heck of a player to step up and make the shots that he did in crunch time,” said Klazas, who tried to make some late adjustments to limit Batts’ touches.

“That’s one of the first things I said to them is being down six with under a minute to go and no quit,” Schieler remarked. “It’s only the second game of the season and we’ve done very little end of game scenarios and for them to execute some of the things that they did [was extremely pleasing]. I was happy that they kept fighting.”

While Miles McCaskey sank the back end of his two-shot look to push Catholic’s advantage back to two, the partisan gathering fell somewhat silent when Batts rose up inside the stripe and hoisted a potential game-winner that didn’t draw iron.

Everything on Catholic's word checklist could be checked off.

Having the poise down the stretch to fend off the fast-closing Panthers. Since Klazas employed 10 players, lots of people contributed. And for the second straight night, the Crusaders could call themselves winners — although Saturday's conquest delivered a notable scalp.

“I know we have a lot of big goals,” Landis said, although he did not identify anything specific. “We have a lot of goals that we want to get, but we just want to take it one game at a time, keep working hard in the practice gym.”

As for Central, several key pieces from last year’s run to the District 3-AAAA championship game and a berth in the PIAA Class AAAA playoffs may be gone, but the Panthers are going to be OK. They’ll learn even more when they hit Dallastown and Red Lion next week for their first two YAIAA Division I scraps.

“Our guys really buy into our program and hell or high water they want to be competitive and they want to win basketball games,” said Schieler of attempting to replace all-state guard Jared Wagner and several others. “I’m blessed to have guys that want to compete so hard. As soon as last year ended, guys stepped up into new roles.

“Guys who may have played a little bit last year are stepping into big-time roles. Guys who understand their roles in terms of being an interior guy or an exterior guy and things like that. We’re lucky to have guys that want to do the right thing so much.”

Catholic also benefited from the early-season matchup, since the Crusaders are expected to compete hard for the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s Section 3 championship.

“This is a great early-season test, that’s what my assistant just said,” Schieler said. “You never want to lose, but you want to get battled and you want to get tested and we did.

“Unfortunately we didn’t come out on the right side,” Schieler continued, “but it was a great learning experience for us.”

Just a few more useful words that could serve a purpose later on — for both sides.