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PIAA A: Faith Christian beats familiar opponent Plumstead, advances to semifinals

03/17/2018, 12:30am EDT
By Tyler Sandora

Darius Forney (above) and Faith Christian beat Plumstead Christian for the third time on Friday night. (Photo: Tyler Sandora/CoBL)

Tyler Sandora (@tyler_sandora)
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In Faith Christian’s previous two matchups with Plumstead Christian earlier this year, the Lions had no problem handling their Bicentennial League foe.

Faith won by 22 points on January 30, and 31 points on February 5. In those previous two matchups, Plumstead was without it’s leading scorer, senior Carson Curry.

Both teams ended up representing District One in the PIAA Class A state tournament -- Faith as the top seed out of the district and Plumstead third -- and each won their games in the first two rounds. That set up a rematch; a third meeting between the two schools separated by only 13 miles, at Spring-Ford High School in the state quarterfinals.  

Even though Curry was healthy and played for Plumstead this time around, Faith Christian still got the best of the Panthers, winning 82-59, advancing to the state semifinals for the second straight year.

“It’s difficult to beat a team three times,” Faith head coach Tony DeCosta said. “They are an opponent that knows us because we are in the same league, so they fact that we were able to play the way we played was phenomenal. Your opponent gets more and more familiar with you every time you play them.”

Plumstead came out of the gate and gave the impression that this game would be a lot closer than the previous two matchups, nailing four threes in the first quarter and only trailing by three points.

Drew Grow hit three 3-pointers of his own before halftime, and Plumstead was shooting 64 percent as a team from beyond the arc, and 60 percent from the field. Kyle Elton hit three 3’s of his own, and the two forwards combined for 23 of the team’s 34 points at the break.

Faith Christian wasn’t having trouble finding the bottom of the net either, shooting 59 percent from the field in the first half.

That was a common theme in the previous two meetings, as Plumstead has done a majority of its damage from beyond the arc this year.

“They are a great shooting team,” DeCosta said. “They are predicated on knocking down the 3 ball. If you give them room they will make you pay.”

“This is the best they’ve shot in the three games we played them,” senior guard Landon Coyle said. “Credit to them, they were knocking down shots. But in the end, we wanted it more.”

Once Plumstead switched baskets after halftime, the shots were not falling nearly as much. Faith Christian had ramped up it’s pressure, utilizing quick guards Darius Forney and Charles Ervin in shutting down the Plumstead ball handlers.

Faith was on cruise control in the second half, scoring on seemingly every trip down the court. Some possessions were capped off my three-pointers, and some courtesy of Ervin’s leaping ability, as the 6-2 senior threw down two monster dunks down the stretch.

“We like to play Faith basketball,” Coyle said. “We were sharing the rock, evenly distributed scoring. Nice to know that we can count on anyone to make a shot when we need to.”

“Once I get the rebound, I look first to see if my wings are running,” Ervin said. “I know when I drive and attack because I can get to the rim, and I always can kick out and to shoot threes. They were falling. Layups were there and we were taking them.”

Forney led the Lions in scoring with 14 points, and the rest of the scoring was pretty much even across the board. Ervin added 11, junior Dorian Bradford had 10, Coyle and 6-7 senior Sawyer Smith each had nine.

Smith wasn’t available the last two times these teams matched up. Even though he was able to play on Friday night, it didn’t seem to make a difference. Plumstead’s tallest players are only 6-3, but they both spent time on the perimeter hitting threes.

A year ago at Spring-Ford, Faith Christian’s season ended at the hands of Girard College in the state semifinals. Even though they weren’t at the same point of the state tournament, this win at this gym meant a lot for the Lions.

“We all shed tears right here in this hallway,” Forney said. “We wanted to replace that with better memories.”

“We were coming in and didn’t want to end the way we did last year,” Coyle said. “We wanted to win in this gym and prove to ourselves we could back to where we were last year.”

Last year was the first time Faith Christian had made the state semifinals in school history. The Lions only graduated one player from last year’s squad, Zeke Snowden, who went to Division II Nyack College (N.Y.). Faith has as good a chance as ever to get past the semifinals and make history with a championship game appearance.

Standing in its way will be Lourdes Regional, champions of District Four. They will square off on Monday at a site and time to be determined.

“Our preparation makes us confident,” DeCosta said. “We spend time in practice going over what we do and what our opponent does. We hope to be prepared for anything thrown at us. We have to be prepared for our next opponent. We have our work cut out for us.”

 


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