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PIAA Class A: Faith Christian runs away from Sankofa

03/17/2017, 11:30am EDT
By Austin Petolillo

Austin Petolillo (@AustinPSports)
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What started out as a very slow, sloppy basketball game in the first half for both teams, quickly turned into an offensive onslaught for one team, and a heartbreaking way to end a season for another.

Faith Christian Academy went into the halftime break leading by four. Once the Lions came back from the locker room, they took total control of the game, scoring 42 points in the second half to give them a PIAA Class 1A second-round playoff victory over Sankofa Freedom by a final score of 55-27.

“On a stage such as this, I think the guys came out pretty tight tonight so I just wanted them to play more free in the second half,” Faith Christian head coach Tony De Costa said.

A run through the state tournament is still something new to Faith Christian, which was eliminated in the district playoffs by Delco Christian a year ago.

“We played in these types of settings,” De Costa said. “These types of situations and we lost a game here last year against Delco Christian and we remember that and we did not want that to be our last impression here so we did a much better job in the second half.”

Faith Christian separated themselves from Sankofa in the third quarter when they went on to score 24 points in the third quarter while Sankofa only scored 10.

“Defensively we were on point the whole game,” De Costa said. “They only scored 27 points in four quarters of basketball and that’s hard to do this time of season.”

Anchoring Faith Christian on defense was 6-foot-5 senior forward Zeke Snowden, who went on to score nine points, grab four rebounds and snatch four steals.

“My mindset was to just go out there and do anything for the win because last year we didn’t make the state tournament,” Snowden said. “So this year we want to make a little run in it so that’s what we’re doing.”

Snowden has yet to receive an offer but he is receiving interest from schools such as Arcadia, Lancaster Bible and Penn State-Abington.

Snowden is one of three captains on the Faith Christian squad and one of five seniors on the team.

“He’s been here for four years, he knows our system,” De Costa said. “He knows what the expectations are and he’s able to convey that to our younger players so that at least they know what to do in key situations with the basketball and as you can see when we started breaking their press, we made right decisions at the end which is something a captain should show his leadership in.”

The relationship between Snowden, De Costa and the rest of the Faith Christian basketball program is a strong one thanks to Faith Christian assistant coach Keon Green.

“He and my mom went to middle school together,” Snowden said. “So when he said he was coaching at Faith Christian I said I want to come here and be coached by him because I knew him since I was a little kid so it’s a perfect fit for me.”

Leading the way for Faith Christian was senior forward Landon Coyle, who scored a game-high 16 points to go along with three rebounds. Senior wing Miki Vitek scored 10 points and grabbed six rebounds for Faith Christian. Sophomore forward Scott Spann led the way for Sankofa scoring a team-high seven points and grabbing six rebounds.

Up next for Faith Christian is a PIAA class 1A quarterfinal match with St. John Neumann, who is 25-0 this season. The Golden Knights are led by 6-5 Delaware commit Kevin Anderson.

“I think it’s going to be a great game,” De Costa said. “They’re a great team so we have to come prepared, we kind of have to cross our T’s and dot our i’s, make sure we cover the details and once again bring our defensive intensity.”

“We’ll do some scouting reports and see how they play and then we’ll make some adjustments and see how that goes,” Snowden said. “But we’re still going to compete with any other team because I feel like we can compete with any other team in states right now.”


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