Phil-Mont stands tall in win over Church Farm in BAL semifinals
SPRINGFIELD TWP. — It’s not every day you face a 6’10’ center in high school basketball so it’s important that when you do, you try and prepare for it. The Phil-Mont Falcons had a somewhat unconventional approach to facing Church Farm and their towering center Fred Odhiambo.
“We hadn’t played him all year so yesterday we had a pool noodle out and we just had our coaches standing up with it and talked about having our guys go into the noodle,’ said Phil-Mont head coach Glenn Dolton “Don’t shy away; you have to go into the arms.’
Whatever they did it worked, as Phil-Mont powered past Church Farm in the BAL semifinals 45-41 and will face Lower Moreland in the finals.
Right from the tip you could feel the big center’s presence. He swatted the first shot attempt of the game and made sure there were no easy buckets for the Falcons.
Even though the big man was lurking all night in the paint, coach Dolton preached aggressiveness to his team and wanted them to take the action right to him offensively and defensively.
“We had to be the aggressor and be the attacking team instead of being conservative and I thought we did that tonight we had some nice finishes,’ Dolton said.
Phil-Mont did just that. They jumped out to an early 8-4 lead by the end of the first quarter and took a 17-15 lead into half.
While the game was close the Falcons clearly controlled the pace and set the tone for most of the night.
That game control was due in large part to the stellar play of junior forward Sean Griffin who finished with a game-high 16 points and not only dominated the glass but ran the floor as well.
“Sean’s been playing really well this year. He’s really attacked the boards at both ends,’ aid Dolton. “Tonight he attacked the basket, he’s done that on a fairly regular basis, but I think it was important tonight to show that we were going to be on the aggressive end of the play.’
“He has really grown. He’s grown from last year but he’s also grown throughout the season to where he’s a guy that just makes big plays.’
Odhiambo wasn’t the only focus the Falcons had coming into this game. Church Farm guard Michael Mohamed was also a worry for them.
They wanted to make sure they limited the touches for Mohamed and Odhiambo and tried to make Church Farm’s other players beat them.
“Mainly defensively, we were putting all our apples in that basket, which we have all year, but we really needed to make sure Michael Mohamed didn’t get a lot of touches and we wanted to try and keep the big guy, Fred (Odhiambo), from being able to turn on us.’
Mohamed finished with 12 and Odhiambo with 14 but it wasn’t enough in the end.
Big shots down the stretch from Osaze Thornton and David Guiliani sealed the deal for Phil-Mont allowed them to keep their opponents at bay all night and advance to the finals of the BAL tournament.
