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Great Valley toughens up for Ches-Mont American title

02/06/2018, 11:30pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Liam Ward (above) and Great Valley had to overcome the loss of its biggest starter in the Ches-Mont American title game. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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When senior forward Nate Graeff went down with a concussion in practice on Monday, Great Valley senior Liam Ward did his best not to worry.

Sure, the Patriots would be without their senior center, a formidable post presence, for the de-facto Ches-Mont American division championship game against West Chester Rustin. But they’d been in this position before, losing star guard Alex Capitano for most of the season a year ago and still pulling out a division championship

So before the Patriots tipped off Tuesday evening against the Knights, Ward pulled aside junior forwards Gavin Frankenheimer and Jake Prevost, and let them know they needed to make an impact if Great Valley was to emerge with the road win and division crown.

“I said we needed them to be confident and play big,” Ward said. “They’ve lacked confidence at times, when they’d miss a shot or let a guy score, so I told them to be confident and be calm the whole game.”

Whatever Ward said, it worked. The Patriots clamped down on the defensive end, with Frankenheimer and Prevost coming up with big shots in the fourth as Great Valley pulled out a 51-39 victory.

That makes it back-to-back American Division titles for the Patriots and head coach Paul Girone, now in his 16th year with the program in several stints.

“I rank this one way up there,” Girone said. “[I’ve] had a pretty nice, long career, but I put this one way up there -- the way these boys performed tonight, it was terrific. Nate goes down, he’s the middle of our offense and the middle of our defense, but the way our kids played defense tonight, it was all about that. It was beautiful.”

The Patriots (16-6, 11-1) held the Knights to 35 percent (15-of-42) overall and were especially stout inside against Rustin’s impressive junior forward Jake Nelson, who scored his 1,000th point in the first quarter and finished with eight points and seven rebounds but needed 13 shots to get there.

Guarding Nelson was Prevost (rhymes with “TiVo”), a 6-4 junior forward whose primary athletics role at Great Valley is as its quarterback. Every time Nelson got the ball, though, either the 6-4 Ward or the 6-3 Frankenheimer came over to help.

“I mean, in my mind, the only thing going through my mind was I can’t foul out, I’ve just got to stay up straight,” Prevost said. “He’s a great player, obviously scored his 1,000th point tonight. It was a tough job, but we got it done.”

With Great Valley clinging to a two-point lead in the final four minutes, it was up to seniors Ward and Matt Porreca -- the only two remaining starters in the lineup due to Graeff’s injury and the fact that Capitano is now at Episcopal Academy -- to get it done. And they delivered; first Ward with a spinning layup to expand the lead to three, then Porreca with a steal and easy layup made it five.

Prevost had perhaps the clincher, a three-point play with just over two minutes left that opened up an eight-point advantage. And he went through Nelson to do it.

“I saw an open lane to the basket, and at that point I was like, I committed,” he said, “so I just had to go to the rack strong -- and hopefully they were going to call a block instead of a charge.”

Both Ward and Porreca, who will play college basketball together at D-III Guilford (N.C.), finished with 14 points to lead all scorers; Ward added four rebounds and Porreca four assists.

Frankenheimer had 12, including the first five points of the game for Great Valley and another key 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, as well as four foul shots in the final minute.

Prevost finished with seven and junior guard Max Stillwell had five as the Great Valley starters accounted for the team’s entire scoring total. The Patriots shot better than 50 percent overall, as well as 7-for-11 from 3-point range and 13-of-16 from the foul line.

“I think the offense that we ran was perfect, it was a perfectly-called offense,” Ward said. “Matt putting his head down and attacking the basket was huge...Gavin was setting great screens up top, we were running off them and getting to the basket. I think Matt and I were better at attacking the basket than they were stopping us.”

The Patriots led most of the way, though generally by no more than a couple of points against the Knights aside from an 11-4 advantage after one quarter.

Rustin (13-8, 9-2) battled back to make it 22-21 GV at halftime, and it was a two-point gap in the visitors’ favor head into the fourth.

The third 3-pointer of the game by Rustin junior Drew Hickson briefly gave the Knights a lead early in the fourth quarter, but they were unable to capitalize on the momentum.

Taj Asparagus led Rustin with 10 points, and the 6-5 forward complemented that with five steals, five rebounds and three assists. Bryce Pew had six points, four rebounds and three assists.

Both teams will still be playing in the Ches-Mont Final Four this weekend, no matter what happens in Rustin’s season finale against Oxford on Thursday. The National's seeds are still not finalized; Coatesville (9-2) and Bishop Shanahan (9-2) are both in, though Shanahan's game against Downingtown East on Wednesday will determine who's in first and who's in second.

No matter what happens, the road will not be easy for Great Valley, which is trying to reverse the results from a 23-point loss to Shanahan in last year’s Ches-Mont semifinal and loss to Archbishop Carroll in the first round of the state playoff.

“Yeah, we’ve got a pretty tough challenge,” Ward said. “I’m pretty excited either way, two great teams, and I’m looking forward to a better result than last year in the Ches-Mont final.”


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