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District 3: Trinity and Country Day extend championship runs

03/01/2018, 12:00am EST
By Michael Bullock

Trinity's Patrick Walker (above) slowed down Kutztown's Lorencz Jean-Baptiste in Trinity's win on Wednesday night. (Photo: Michael Bullock/CoBL)

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)

HERSHEY — When Patrick Walker stepped on Giant Center’s spacious basketball floor Wednesday night, the Trinity junior knew he had a formidable task awaiting him.

Yet while trying to put a lid on Kutztown’s flammable Lorencz Jean-Baptiste was hardly a simple assignment, Walker spent the run-up working in practice against Trinity assistant coach and former Trinity/Lebanon Valley great Kevin Agnew and his assortment of pull-ups and off-balance leaners.

Well, the 6-3 Walker was plugged in from the start.

Determined to win the matchup — and the game — Walker accomplished his objective by scoring a team-high 12 points, grabbing six rebounds and dishing out a couple of assists as Trinity collared a 53-43 victory that ran its string of consecutive District 3 championships to five.

Ironically, Kutztown enjoyed its own five-peat from 1949-53.

“It’s definitely crazy, because we’re the first team since Kutztown to do it,” Walker said while admitting there’s a good kind of pressure that accompanies Trinity’s sparkling run. “It helps us to work harder.

“It makes us want it more.”

As for Jean-Baptiste, who also had to deal with Jack Bucher and/or Tresjon Ruiz when Walker was catching a breather on the bench, he wound up with nine points, one board and two assists.

So Walker pocketed his second Class 3A championship medal in as many years while being declared the winner of his lengthy duel with a 6-3 Kutztown junior who came in averaging 21 points per.

Yeah, that’s a successful outing for a youngster whose father, Matt, mined District 3 gold in the early 1990s during his sparkling Trinity career before heading off to Loyola (Md.).

“I’ve been practicing all week against Kevin Agnew,” said Walker, who admitted he watched a lot of film on Jean-Baptiste’s offensive offerings. “And he was playing like No. 23.”

As for the five-peat, that bettered the four-peat the Shamrocks of Larry Kostelac Jr. enjoyed from 2001-2004 when Walker’s uncle, Mike, helped hoist three District 3 championship trophies. Shamrocks assistant coach Larry Kostelac III was on the first of those teams that won four straight.

“For me to be around this long and experience that is really special,” said Kostelac Jr., who has piloted his alma mater to each of its 17 District 3 championships. He’s also logged 696 career victories.

“It’s unreal. It’s hard to believe. I don’t know where all the time went.”

Matt Long added 11 points for the Shamrocks (20-5), while Kalen Veres and Bucher finished with 10 apiece. Sean Good, the 6-11 Lafayette recruit, chimed in with eight points and six boards — the latter number giving him 1,000 career boards to go with 1,000-plus career points and 500 blocked shots.

Up next for Trinity, which also pocketed its 17th District 3 title, is a March 10 date in the opening round of states against Tacony Academy Charter, the sixth seed from Philadelphia-based District 12.

With Jean-Baptiste under control — he was 3-for-16 from the floor, 1-for-3 from the arc and 2-for-3 from the foul line — Brayden Eck (12 points) was the lone Kutztown player to reach double figures.

As for trying to deal with Jean-Baptiste, the long-armed Walker put in motion a simple defensive approach to his encounter with Kutztown’s No. 1 offensive option.

“I didn’t want to let him see the rim,” Walker admitted. “He’s a really good scorer. He can score on anybody, but as long as I kept a hand in his face he couldn’t get a clear view of the rim.

“I just wanted to win the matchup.”

“He did it,” Kostelac added. “He scored as well. He had double digits. That was just a heck of a game for a young kid who worked his tail off. He was a kid at the beginning of the year who struggled and he wasn’t comfortable. As the year progressed, he kept getting better and better.

“He’s a heck of a player. He’s a college basketball player.”

While defense was critical, the Shamrocks also flashed plenty of crisp ball movement throughout the 32-minute exercise, using that unselfishness to put five players in the scoring column while building a 20-6 lead after one quarter. Before it was over, Trinity had 18 assists on its 21 field goals.

“We work a lot on that at practice,” Walker said. “When the ball gets sticky, we get yelled at.

“They’re always preaching, ‘Make the extra pass.’”

“We’ve been getting better and better as the year progresses,” Kostelac added. “We’ve got a bunch of young guys and we have one of those kinds of teams where the more you play the better you’re going to get. We’re not there yet, that’s the nice part.

“I thought we did a super job of spreading people out and this is the second game in a row where we passed the ball and it would lead to easy buckets,” Kostelac continued. “Kids just did a super job and I’m very, very happy with the way we played.”

Although Trinity’s lead reached 18 at one point (51-33), Kutztown (20-4) never got closer than 10 as the Shamrocks’ five-peat celebration began to come into view.

“It was a great team effort,” Walker said.

“It never gets old,” Kostelac admitted. “Every team is different and it’s just so much fun. Our kids just rose to the occasion, there’s no doubt about it.”

York Country Day makes it three straight District 3 crowns

Although things seemed really, really dicey — especially when your side’s sitting in a 19-point quandary with five-plus minutes to play in the third quarter — Jalen Gorham and his York Country Day teammates never ran up any form of white flag or uttered a collective ‘No mas.’

What the Greyhounds did do was slide seamlessly into a trapping 1-3-1 half-court zone defense with the 6-7 Gorham at the point, a look that all-but-paralyzed the opposition.

Yet while an improbable comeback began to materialize slowly, the two-time defending District 3 Class A champions soon were riding all sorts of momentum as the first of four championship-deciding games at Hershey’s Giant Center wheeled into its pivotal home stretch.

Once YCD’s Jonathan Wymard buried a 3-pointer from the left wing in transition with 59 seconds remaining to give the Greyhounds their first lead, Chris Charleston’s club finally could exhale and find a second wind. They didn’t need it for much longer, as they soon were celebrating … again.

With Gorham pocketing 17 of his 26 points after the halftime break — all with four fouls in the book — York Country Day rallied for a 61-54 victory over Lancaster Country Day in the District 3 Class A title game. Wednesday’s win made it three straight District 3 crowns for the Greyhounds.

Gorham, a Division I prospect, also snared nine rebounds.

Wymard added 12 points for YCD (15-5), which trailed the Tri-Valley League entry 44-25 with 5:23 remaining in the third quarter. The Greyhounds, in fact, were still down 10 points after three, but pulled even with 1:19 to go on a pair of Luke Greisler free throws.

Some 20 seconds later, Gorham found Wymard with an outlet pass. And when the 5-8 junior hoisted a courageous pop from the left wing that fell, the Greyhounds led 57-54. Gorham added four more points for YCD, two on free throws and another following a steal and finish at the rim.

“That might have been one of the craziest moments of the season,” Gorham said. “We still had to get back on defense, but everybody was jumping and cheering, it was so loud.

“It was the most exciting moment that I can recall. It was a big-time shot.”

YCD, which will open the PIAA Class A tournament on March 9 against Phil-Mont Christian or Plumstead Christian, actually netted the last 12 points of the Class A title game.

Playing in its first District 3 final, Lancaster Country Day (18-8) was fueled by Andrew Williams’ 19 points. Luke Walling added 18 points and Bradley Fry cranked out a double-double (10 points/10 rebounds) for LCD, which will meet Juniata Valley or Blacklick Valley in its state opener.

Williams netted 18 points in the first half as LCD constructed a 36-21 halftime cushion.

“We didn’t have that goal. We just said, ‘Let’s keep playing basketball,’” Charleston said, when asked about being down 10 (48-38) after three quarters. “In here we said, ‘Hey, it’s 0-0, let’s go out and play and leave it all out on the floor. We’re gonna go down swinging.’”

While the Cougars were able to extend their lead to 19 twice (40-21 and 44-25), once YCD switched to its mystifying 1-3-1 half-court trap momentum gradually began to change — even though Gorham was burdened with four fouls for so long. Didn’t prevent him from tying up ballhandlers and trapping.

“[Playing with four fouls] might have been the hardest thing of my life,” said Gorham, who played a big role last season when YCD reached the state quarterfinals before falling in overtime to Girard College.

Sum it all up and YCD did what it needed to do to ensure its three-peat.

“This is the biggest thing,” Gorham said. “No one thought we were gonna do this. We lost everybody from last year. … We were basically a new team and everybody built into a new role."

“This is probably one of the most glorious and surprising district championships.”


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