Spring-Ford stays unbeaten in PAC, tops Boyertown

BOYERTOWN >> Their names are Cameron Reid, Matt Gnias, Chucky Drummond, Nigel Cooke and Nestor Diaz. They are the starting five players for the Spring-Ford Rams boys basketball team.

Often times, they use a strong half-court game to win their games. But on Friday night against Boyertown, in a battle of Pioneer Athletic Conference Liberty Division leaders, the Rams showed they can utilize a basic transition game, too, with a lot of movement up and down the floor.

Spring-Ford used that style to turn back the Bears, 65-52, to stay unbeaten and atop the Liberty Division at 11-0 in the PAC-10 (16-4 overall). Boyertown, which is in a fight with Perkiomen Valley for the second seed for the upcoming PAC-10 Final Four playoffs, slipped to 6-5 (11-8 overall) with two games remaining in the regular season schedule. The two squads are currently tied in all areas and the final spot could be determined by a deep tiebreaker, depending on how matters shake out in the last two games.

Reid and Drummond each scored 18 points to pace the Rams while Cooke followed up with 17 to give Spring-Ford three players in double digits. Gnias ended up with eight points.For Boyertown, sophomore distance shooter Jerry Kapp led the way with a game-high 26 points. Marcus Thomas finished with 13 points and Ben Longacre had eight.

“We focus on our transition game,” said Drummond. “We defend and challenge the pass. We are a very quick team. We can score a lot of points on teams like that. It is definitely a big part of our game. We play good help defense. We play solid defense.”

Spring-Ford broke out to an 18-10 lead after the first quarter with Drummond scoring eight points in the first eight minutes. He canned a pair of 3-pointers as part of the production.

The Bears, though, did not go away, and by halftime, they were within two points at 28-26. The Rams outscored Boyertown 16-11 in the third to take a 44-37 lead into the final stanza.

“We have good chemistry,” said Cooke. “That makes everyone feel good about ourselves. We make everyone else better, even ourselves. We do it with energy and effort at both the offensive and defensive side of the court. If they score, we can stop them on defense.”

Spring-Ford head coach Chris Talley was pleased with the Rams’ transitional play.

“I thought we were better in our transition game than we were in our last game against Pope John Paul II, when we weren’t very good,” said Talley. “One of the things tonight was we told the kids we can run and we executed. We were getting the ball out with the passes and we had people filling the lanes. We practice that a lot.

“Offensively, we missed more layups tonight than we usually do. But it was good to see that when we are not clicking in our half-court game, our offense can score out of transition.”

Talley praised Boyertown for playing hard to stay in the game, led by Kapp’s long-range bombs. He also thought the road atmosphere was ideal for how upcoming playoff games are going to be with large, loud crowds in all gyms.

Boyertown coach Mike Ludwig thought his kids gave a solid effort. But it was a matter of trying to defend all five capable players in terms of scoring that Spring-Ford can put on the floor with its starters and some of its bench players, too. Also, he said Boyertown had a lot of good shots all evening, but some of them did not start to fall until later in the second half.

“We had great shots,” said Ludwig. “Our shots started coming at the end of the third quarter and in the fourth quarter. Then they started falling. That’s just the way it goes. We talked about it before the game, and said you had two good teams who were going to make plays. Our kids were right there. It’s really difficult to box them out. They all go very hard to the glass.”