William Tennent closes out on Swenson
WARMINSTER >> Most of the game Monday night against Swenson, William Tennent struggled to get baskets.
Fortunately for the Panthers, when you play good defense you don’t need to score that many of them. Tennent used a tenacious defensive effort, a nice offensive game from John Ryan and closed the game out down the stretch to earn the 48-32 win in the William Tennent Holiday Classic.
“I just think our offense was choppy, we were committing unforced turnovers,” Tennent coach Robert Mulville said. “I think defensively we made the right adjustments.”
After the first quarter, it looked like the Panthers might be in for a long night. They gave up 14 points and only trailed by three because Pat McCauley scored eights points in the quarter, hitting a three-pointer and going 5-for-6 from the free throw line.
“He got to the foul line, he hit a three, but I think our defense helped us in the second quarter,” Mulville said.
After giving up the 14 first-quarter points, the Panthers settled down defensively, only allowing 14 points the rest of the game.
There wasn’t any one part of Tennent’s defensive effort that spectacular, it was just all around solid. The Panthers got just got enough steals, rebounded the ball well enough, stayed with their man and contested every shot and stayed out of foul trouble.
“Hopefully they take out of that even if we’re not having our best night offensively that we got to keep on bearing down defensively and that will keep us in just about any game,” Mulville said.
After McCauley’s offensive outburst in the first quarter, Tennent’s top scoring option, Ryan, took over. The senior finished with a game-high 16 points, including seven big fourth-quarter points, as the Panthers closed out the final frame winning it 14-6.
“Everybody knows he kind of our go to guy,” Mulville said of Ryan. “He came up big with some foul shots in the fourth quarter and a couple of buckets.”
“We had a little spurt late in the fourth quarter, Pat (McCauley) hit a three, John (Ryan) scored and that put us up 11 and that made them go man which worked toward our advantage in the end,” said Mulville of a big sequence that happened a little past the mid way point in the fourth quarter.”
Tennent moves on to play Gloucester County Tech Institute in the Holiday Classic final before taking on Abington when Suburban One League National Conference play resumes next week.
