McTamney’s 30 helps La Salle past North Penn in 2nd half

SPRINGFIELD >> For about 20 minutes of game time Saturday afternoon, North Penn was giving as good as it got against Philadelphia Catholic League power La Salle.

Then, with the game tied 34-34, the Explorers seemed to find their second gear and decided they were going to come out on top. Undeterred by another slow start, but wary of it, La Salle turned up the defense in the second half as it took care of the Knights 70-54 to improve to 7-0.

Forward Ryan McTamney dropped in 30 points to lead La Salle, but it was just as much the play of guards Jarred Stukes and Matt Paulus that turned the tide in a 40-25 second half.

“We have not been getting off to a good start,” La Salle coach Joe Dempsey said. “We missed layups, lost assignments, we’d come out of a huddle and have mental lapses that we have to get cleaned up in a hurry because the league starts on Tuesday. I told the guys, I didn’t draw single thing up on the board at halftime and said this is not about X’s and O’s, it’s about playing with more passion, more fire and outworking them.”

Dempsey said North Penn played better than he expected but also credited the Knights’ coaching. North Penn came out of the gates on fire, scoring the first seven points of the contest and taking a 14-4 lead with 3:08 left in the first quarter when J.J. Melchior canned a 3 with a hand in his face.

The Knights held a 16-7 lead with 1:37 to go when La Salle closed the first out on a 6-0 run by Paulus and McTamney to draw within 16-13. It was but a small preview of what was to come for McTamney, who North Penn could not slow down.

“(La Salle) played great defense down the stretch and we had trouble scoring,” Knights coach John Conrad said. “I thought they wore us down a little bit and were able to get to the rim pretty regularly. (McTamney) killed us, he’s a tough matchup.”

Dempsey was impressed by the forward’s performance but also cautioned he and the team can’t rely on that nightly against PCL competition. La Salle is replacing three of its most important players from last year in Sean Witherspoon, Najee Wells and David Krmpotich, all playing in college, so finding a scoring balance is critical.

North Penn accelerated back up to a 23-15 lead on a 7-2 run to open the second quarter and after La Salle got it back to 23-20, North Penn scored four in a row to go back up seven. The whole second quarter was a trade-off of runs, with La Salle getting within a point at 27-26 and finally taking its first lead with 1.3 seconds left in the half when McTamney stole an inbounds pass and laid it in.

“Ryan, in addition to him being able to go to the rim more this year, he’s finding the open spots,” Dempsey said. “He’s making foul shots and he’s a very efficient shooter. The good news is he had 30 points, the bad news is we need to find other points.”

North Penn was very balanced, with nine players getting minutes before the game got out of hand late, and three players in Melchior, Matt Pickford and Noah Kwortnick finished with 11 points. The issue was that La Salle’s defense started taking North Penn out of its offense, and the Knights ended the game with 19 turnovers.

“We knew they weren’t going to go away,” Conrad said. “Stukes, he’s incredibly tough and he made it tough for us to get into any sort of rhythm offensively because he was able to turn us over and really put a lot of pressure on.”

Stukes, who finished with nine points, two rebounds, nine assists and six steals, erupted in the second half on both ends of the floor, his feistiness on defense hounding North Penn ballhandlers was a spark. The guard forced four steals after the half and got more assertive offensively in attacking the hoop and in turn, spraying assists, several to McTamney on sharp cuts.

Paulus, who scored 12, was hitting the floor plenty himself in other ways. He took a couple of key charges in the second half that kept North Penn frustrated offensively while also playing sound one-on-one defense.

“They’re pound-for-pound and inch-for-inch two of the toughest kids we’ve had in a long time,” Dempsey said. “They play so hard and really the soul of our team. It’s something I talked to them about, we’re not good enough to get down 12 or 14 points on anybody. They just went out and took the game over, both of them. He’s not going to be able to do that to (Roman Catholic’s) Tony Carr, (Neumann-Goretti’s) Quade Green or (Archbishop Carroll’s) Josh Sharkey, but it was their will more than anything, I had nothing to do with that.”

North Penn did rally back one more time to tie the game at 40-40 with 2:32 left in the third but then La Salle closed the quarter on a roll, scoring nine straight points, seven coming from McTamney. The forward made it an 11-0 run into the fourth and La Salle scored eight of the next 11 points to go up 59-34 and all but ice the game.

La Salle starts PCL play with Archbishop Ryan Tuesday while the Knights face Central Bucks West, currently first in the Suburban One League Continental Conference in another tough test Tuesday.