City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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ALLENTOWN — Might be a deep 3-point shot or even an effort in transition, but when Jeremy Johnson gets his first look to fall lots of neat stuff generally follows.

Make that lots and lots of neat stuff.

Pouring in a career-high 31 points Tuesday night — on a mix of perimeter rips and penetration — Johnson fueled Bethlehem Liberty to a satisfying 72-64 victory over Parkland in the third and final game of the Parkland Holiday Classic.

Johnson also dished out four assists, one more than soph Todd Erney.

“The first thing I shot — the man was in my face all night — once it goes in the hole gets bigger for me,” Johnson said matter-of-factly. “So once I started doing layups, and-ones, ballhandling, all this other stuff, I’m like, ‘All right, you got the game.’”

Eventually, that was the case.

Cameron Hoffman and Amir Griffin also reached double figures for Chad Landis’ Hurricanes (4-3, 3-2), scoring 11 and 10 points, respectively, as Liberty moved into Wednesday night’s final opposite perennial District 3 hammer Harrisburg.

Liberty wound up shooting just south of 60 percent (25-for-42) from the floor and a tremendous 63.6 percent (7-for-11) from beyond the 3-point arc.

Those numbers certainly proved favorable for Landis’ feisty Hurricanes, who also picked up a timely league victory since the East Penn Conference is full of capable squads.

“You always want to try and play well as you get to the holidays here and, coming out, use that to catapult you into racking up some league wins,” Landis said. “So, the fact that we were able to play well in a Christmas tournament and get a league win is rare.”

American University recruit Sam Iorio collected 28 points for Parkland (2-5, 1-4), pocketing 14 straight during one stretch in the third quarter as Andy Stephens’ Trojans twice closed to within one point (52-51 and 54-53) but could not surge in front.

Gabe Burgos popped off the bench to score 14 points and Jake Bartholomew wound up with 10 as Parkland dropped its third game in a row — all at home.

Iorio, though, is the lone starter back for a refurbished Trojans team that last season went 21-4, claimed a District 11-AAAA title and advanced to the state quarters before eventual champ Roman Catholic ended their postseason run.

“[They] made everything, we dug ourselves a hole and we’ve done that a couple games this year,” Stephens said. “I thought our effort was good to get back into it and fight; I’m not disappointed in their effort at all. We need to be better teammates and we need to play better together. It’s one of those things where losing kind of amplifies all the negatives that are occurring. When you win, you kind of forget about them.”

While Liberty rattled off the first eight points of the game — treys from Hoffman and Alex Serrano followed Johnson’s finish at the tin — the Hurricanes eventually led by as many as 14 (22-8) in the opening quarter before Parkland started to dig in.

Liberty’s pressure also paved the way for the Hurricanes’ sparkling start, as the host Trojans were flustered by the visitors’ quicks and athleticism.

“That’s what we had to do for us to achieve what we wanted to do,” Johnson said. “We know how Parkland can play, so once we had a good lead we knew they’d come back.”

“First time this year that we’ve gotten off to a really quick start like that,” Landis added. “I was proud of our guys. It was something that we had gotten off to OK starts and some really bad starts, so to really come out with a lot of energy felt good to play like that and try to continue that throughout the rest of the game.”

Despite Parkland’s ability to adjust, get a needed boost off the bench from Burgos and slow down Liberty’s full-frontal attack, when the halftime break arrived, the Hurricanes were still holding a somewhat comfortable 38-28 lead.

As for Johnson — the 5-8 senior was 7-for-9 in the first half as the bucket grew larger and larger — he already had logged 16 points when halftime finally arrived.

Johnson finished 9-for-14 from the floor, made three of his four looks from deep and canned all 10 of his freebies … including a perfect 8-for-8 in crunch time.

“He’s had some games where he had his outside game going and he’s also had some games where he was good getting to the basket,” Landis said. “Tonight he was good at both. So when he gets them going like that both, outside-inside, he’s tough to keep in front. He’s a natural scorer, so on that end I thought he was really, really good for us.”

Didn’t stop Parkland from making a determined charge at the Hurricanes.

Once Iorio went off and Burgos cashed in from deep, Stephens’ Trojans were able to make it a one-possession game in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter.

“[Burgos] gave us a great spark,” Stephens said. “He’s done that a couple times for us this year. He knows his limitations … he knows what he can do.

“If we had the fight and passion collectively he shows when it’s game night, we would be in really good shape. I know guys want to win and I know guys work hard, but on game night he’s the type of kid that everything he possibly has he gives.”

Still …

“I think we’ll be all right,” Stephens said.

“As long as this team keeps fighting and there’s still season left, [we’ll be OK].”

Liberty didn’t yield a thing, however, as Jon Heess connected for a reverse layup, Johnson nailed the last of his three 3-balls off a Hoffman kick and Griffin followed with a bucket from a step off the right elbow to make it 61-55 at the 3:17 mark.

Parkland never clawed any closer as the Hurricanes drained 11 of 15 free throws — Johnson was a perfect 8-for-8 in the final 2:38 — to close out a tasty East Penn result and push into Wednesday night’s championship game.

“It’s hard to win games when you start bad and end bad,” Landis admitted. “A couple times, that’s what happened to us. In the beginning, we wanted to get off to a fast start and in the end we just wanted to kind of do what we do to control the end of the game — basically without turning it over. So the games when we faltered at the end, we had too many live-ball turnovers. They’re sick of hearing me talk about live-ball turnovers.

“I thought we did a good job tonight, especially in that last five minutes, of not having as many live-ball turnovers,” added Landis, whose team totaled just 12 mistakes all game.

Needless to say, Tuesday’s win meant plenty … on a number of fronts.

“It’s Parkland,” Johnson said. “We normally don’t beat Parkland. We beat Parkland, so that’s gonna give us a big lift … and we can beat more teams.”