Phil-Mont Christian stay perfect in BAL with win over Faith Christian

SPRINGFIELD >> Tuesday night’s Bicentennial Athletic League matchup featuring Phil-Mont Christian and Faith Christian was pretty much how you would expect a game with six of the 10 combined starters measuring over 6-foot-4 inches tall.

The game was a battle in the trees. Physical play, very little outside jump shooting, limited amounts of transition opportunities and a fair amount of chances from the free throw line. In the end,  Phil-Mont made enough shots and free throws to ice Faith 46-33 and move to 8-0 in Bicentennial Athletic League play.

“I was real pleased with our defense,” Phil-Mont coach Glenn Dolton said. “We got a little bit of penetration which helped us out. Neither team was hitting any shots from the perimeter. I knew the game, and I told the guys, was going to come down to who’s going to win the lane.”

Faith played the game well enough on the defensive end to win. It prevented Phil-Mont from getting into fast break situations, something that the Falcons like to do and it was able to, for the most part, contain the Phil-Mont big three of Sean Griffin, Noah Baldez and Osaze Thornton.

“We didn’t finish well around the rim,” Faith coach Tony DeCosta said. “We played well defensively but that’s only half the equation, the other half is you got to put the ball in the basket and we did not do a good job with that.”

While Griffin might have been limited to only 10 points on the offensive end, he did an excellent job leading a dominant and complete team effort on the defensive end, rebounded the ball terrifically and played great on-ball defense. Griffin did score six of his 10 points in the fourth to help put the game away for the Falcons.

“He got in a little foul trouble and sat most of the second quarter,” said Dolton of Griffin. “The thing that I was really pleased with was his on ball defense was really solid tonight.”

Dolton mentioned how happy he was with the focus his team has displayed thus far that has propelled them to a 13-1 (8-0 BAL Consitution) record but Phil-Mont still has a tough grind ahead as it still has big league matchups with Plumstead Christian, Calvary Christian, Faith and two games against Jenkintown.

“We keep talking about how our focus and preparation is all a standard of excellence,” Dolton said. “We’re trying to preach this year that everything we do is at a high level and they’ve been really good with that this year.”