Another PIAA basketball championships are in the books and with them came some entertaining games for East Shore hoops fans who made their way to the Giant Center.
The biggest upset went, of course, to Kobe Bryant’s old team, Lower Merion, which stunned two-time defending state champ Chester, 63-47. In their previous meeting in the District 1 final, Chester prevailed 60-46.
Arizona-bound senior Rondae Jefferson, the reigning 6-7 PIAA player of the year, had 18 in his final game for Chester, but Lower Merion’s B.J. Johnson, headed for Syracuse, had 22 to pace the Aces.
Another two-time defending champ, the Steel-High girls, never had a chance to go for No. 3 as Tri-Valley upended All-American Malia Tate-DeFreitas and the Rollers in the PIAA-A semifinals. At least the Rollers could say they lost to the eventual state champs, who downed Vincentian, 59-42, behind 19 points by 6-4 Tara Nahodil.
In girls’ AAAA action, East Shore fans had to root for the lone Mid-Penn entry in the finals, Cumberland Valley. The Eagles of coach Bill Wolf made a strong run through the playoffs, after losing to Palmyra, 60-56, in the Mid-Penn title game and to Central Dauphin East, 59-57, in the second round of the District 3-AAAA tournament.
CV bounced back with district wins over Lampeter-Strasburg and Manheim Twp. on its way to the PIAA tourney, where it ran off wins over Mt. St. Joseph’s Academy, Manheim Twp. again, North Penn and Chartiers Valley.
OK, so the Eagles lost to District 1 champ Spring-Ford, 60-45, in the final, but the Rams were every bit as good as advertised. Their only two losses of the year were to Notre Dame 58-56 in their season opener and to St. Anthony’s of New York, 52-39, in the 10th game of the year. After that, it was 24 straight for the Rams.
Among their victims was Hershey, 59-41, in the first round at Norristown.
Spring-Ford had a well-balanced offense that featured four players 5-10 or bigger and five players who hit 3-point shots against CV as it went 8-for-14 from beyond the arc. The Rams’ strength, however, was team defense.
“Spring-Ford pressures the ball better than any team in the state,” said Hershey coach Randy Gambelunghe. “They’re famous for their 10-0 runs.”
Ten-point runs are often made possible when a team scores, then creates a steal seconds later, something Spring-Ford did several times.
The Eagles hung tough for a half against the Rams, but gave up a 16-6 third quarter and were never able to catch up.
As the only Mid-Penn team to make the finals, the Eagles had a considerable fan base at the Giant Center besides those from the West Shore.
Among the Eagles I chose to talk to after the game were sophomore guards Jen Falconer and Taylor Sneidman. Falconer picked up her second foul midway through the first quarter and had to sit. Sneidman was left to deal with the Rams’ pressure without her normal outlet in the back court.
“Spring-Ford was very tough, very physical,” Falconer said. “It didn’t help that I went out with two fouls. There wasn’t much I could do.”
Sneidman and Falconer are both All Big 11 soccer players for the perennially tough Eagles of coach Seth Lehman. Their appearances in the basketball final made it three PIAA finals for them in 10 months.
They won the state title in soccer in the spring of 2012, before losing to Peters Twp. last fall, 1-0. Sneidman scored the goal to beat Lower Dauphin, 1-0, last fall in overtime in the PIAA-AAA semifinals at Milton Hershey.
Their recent success in basketball created a bit of a quandary.
“Everybody wants to know if we’re going to concentrate on basketball or go back to soccer,” said Falconer, whose older sister, 6-1 Jacqueline, led the CV basketball team. “We really don’t know. It’s a tough decision. We’ll probably both play a little AAU basketball this spring and find new soccer clubs to play for. This was the first year I didn’t play club soccer.”
Falconer and Sneidman compared the loss to Spring-Ford to their 3-0 loss to Lower Dauphin last fall in the District 3-AAA soccer semifinals at Hersheypark Stadium.
Except they got to avenge that loss in the state semifinals on Sneidman's goal.
"It felt so great to score that goal against Lower Dauphin," Sneidman said. "I'm not even sure how it came about, except that it was off a corner. I just looked down and the ball was at my feet. That was definitely sweet revenge."