Cheltenham falls in District 1-AAAA 1st round to Perkiomen Valley

CHELTENHAM>> For a long time Cheltenham has been known for its pressure and high-tempo pace on the court. Friday night, as it got ready to face Perkiomen Valley in the first round of the District 1-AAAA playoffs, the Panthers wanted to make sure they were in the Vikings’ face all night and forcing them into turnovers and bad shots.

Unfortunately for Cheltenham Justin Jaworski had himself a ridiculous night for PV, scoring 29 of his teams 49 points, on the way to upsetting the Panthers 49-45.

“We knew we had to carry out a certain game plan when it came to trying to dictate tempo,” PV head coach Mike Poysden said. “We were trying to work for open shots. In the first half we were a little too frantic, but we kind of keyed in on that at halftime and talked about handling the pressure and in the second half we just took care of the basketball.”

For much of the first half, Cheltenham did what it wanted to do. The Panthers pressured PV into bad turnovers at the half court line and forced their ball handlers to pick up their dribble way too early.

The offensive end was clicking too. Anthony White had a spectacular first half on his way to 14 points on 6-9 shooting as the Vikings had no answer for him.

The senior guard not only used his length and control to finish in the lane, but he had the outside shot working as well.

“Anthony White has been really coming on at the end of the season,” Cheltenham head coach John Timms said. “At the end of the season he really started shooting well and it was working out there tonight.”

Going into the half, the Panthers held a 24-20 lead over PV and looked to be in control, but something different happened in the third quarter.

Jaworski, who is just a junior, exploded for 13 of his teams 14 points in the third, hitting 2 three’s and not missing a single field goal.

“He just doesn’t quit,” said Poysden of Jaworski “He’s just a dynamic great player. Not only can he score it but to have a player that can draw that much defensive attention, he always occupies their best defender and then our other guys can just play within themselves so these guys have really just come together nicely down the stretch.”

Not only was PV’s offense firing on all cylinders, but the Panthers could not buy a hoop, scoring just four points as they watched their four-point lead turn into a six-point deficit in just eight short minutes.

“Jaworski hit about seven or eight points in a row in that third,” Timms said. “If you score three possessions in a row against us from the field it stands out, because usually its fouls that get us. There aren’t  a lot of kids that score of field goals against us but this is one of them that did, but at the same time because how the game was being called I’m telling them you can’t get too close.”

That bad third quarter turned out to just be too much to overcome for Cheltenham, as it watched the clock run down on its year.

With the loss, the Panthers season comes to a disappointing end, but it was still a largely successful year for them.

Second place in the extremely competitive Suburban One League American with a 10-4 conference record is definitely something to build on going forward.

“This season was good and bad to be honest,” Timms said. “We ended up playing well and winning a lot of good games but we just didn’t advance as far as we would have like. We established the fact that we’re a relevant contender in our conference and earned a home playoff game, which is something that I don’t think has been done in something like 10 years, so we achieved that.”