Longino, Germantown Academy outlast Lansdale Catholic
FRANCONIA >> Germantown Academy coach Jim Fenerty wants his team to get to the point where it’s not relying on just one or two guys to score points.
But in this early stretch of the season, he’s glad he has two guys who can do that in Kyle McCloskey and Evan-Eric Longino. Friday night, locked in a battle with a hot-shooting Lansdale Catholic team, the Patriots needed those guys to step up in crunch time.
They most certainly did.
Longino poured in 40 points, 15 of them coming in the final eight minutes, while McCloskey added 11 points and 14 rebounds, six of those in the fourth quarter.
“We’re going to get to the point where people start covering (Longino) and Kyle in the parking lot as soon as we get off the bus,” Fenerty said. “That’s why we’re trying to rotate and get different guys in. I love my seniors, they’re great people, they work hard and understand sometimes the matchup isn’t the right thing for them.”
LC hit nine 3-pointers as it kept running a good offense, even as GA tried to adjust and slow them down. What hurt the Crusaders was an injury to forward Ryan Braun early in the third quarter. Braun knocked heads with a GA player in a bad-luck accident and started to bleed, forcing him out with 17 points at the time.
Still, with their leading scorer out, the Crusaders kept pushing GA. They just didn’t have an answer to Longino.
“One of the things we stressed with our guys was 32 full minutes,” LC coach Joe Corbett said. “We felt we had opportunities in the fourth where we had bad possessions, we had guys out of position but we had too many empty possessions. To be able to take down a team like GA, we have to capitalize on every possession.”
Craig Rosenberg had a hot start, scoring eight and assisting the other three of the first 11 LC points, while Mike Ottomano stepped up after Braun’s injury to drop in 12. Off the bench, guard Noah Saba set up a lot of those shots with a nine assist effort.
BOYS BASKETBALL: GA’s Kyle McCloskey beats first quarter buzzer for 22-20 lead against LC pic.twitter.com/K9f4MhTwCR
— Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3) December 10, 2016
The teams traded punches, with Ottoman staking the Crusaders to a 29-27 lead with 2:41 left in the second as the Patriots were trying to find some guys to compliment the senior combo of Longino and McCloskey. McCloskey, on a feed from Longino, knotted it at 29-29, then a pair of Longino free throws with 1:57 left in the first half gave GA the lead for good.
“It was a heck of an effort (by Longino),” Corbett said. “A lot of his points were just him out-working our guys. He had a lot of put-backs and that’s something we stressed, not getting beat on the boards. I tip my hat to him, it was a great effort. Every key bucket, he got it down the stretch and he was really the difference for them.”
GA pushed its lead up to 43-34 with 3:10 left in the third quarter, but instead of folding, the Crusaders pushed back. A trey by Rosenberg with a minute left in the third and a hoop from Jack Kane early in the fourth cut the lead to three.
Then Longino took over. The senior guard bullied his way in for a hoop with 5:57 left, then finished through contact a minute later, adding on a pair of free throws when it was called an intentional foul.
An offensive rebound and put-back by Longino with 4:06 left put GA up 55-48, then he scored the next five Patriot points, the last three coming on an And-1 put-back.
Ottomano canned a triple after Longino’s traditional three-point play to slice the lead to 60-51, but aside from a banked-in three by Saba, the Crusaders only got one other point in the final 1:55.
“We have a nice mix of seniors, which is a testament to the way we played, we never lost our minds,” Corbett said. “Then we have young guys coming off the bench, so it’s a really nice mix.”
LC definitely played well. It just ran into a guy who knows what it takes to win a game like Friday’s.
“This is my 28th year at GA, I’ve had some great players and what happens is, we get everybody’s A-game,” Fenerty said. “My young guys don’t understand it yet, when you wear a GA uniform, you get everybody’s A-game, plain and simple. So, you have to be A-plus.”
Germantown Academy 64, Lansdale Catholic 55
Germantown Academy 22 10 15 17 – 64
Lansdale Catholic 20 9 13 13 – 55
Germantown Academy (64): Evan-Eric Longino 14 10-13 40, Kyle McCloskey 4 3-8 11, Cole Storm 3 1-2 8, Josh Brownstein 0 2-2 2, Ben Garcia 1 0-0 2, Khalil Ashley-Diarrah 0 1-2 1. Nonscoring: Andrew Towne, Brian Basile, Colten Smith. Totals: 22 17-27 64
Lansdale Catholic (55): Mike Ottomano 4 3-5 12, Craig Rosenberg 4 0-0 11, Ryan Braun 6 2-2 17, Starkey Gable 3 1-2 7, Noah Saba 1 0-0 3, Jack Kane 1 0-0 2, Kyle Kane 1 0-0 3. Nonscoring: Jimmy Boccella, Jack Kusters, Mo Kahney, Luke Godzieba. Totals: 20 6-9 55
3-pointers: GA – Longino 2, Storm; LC – Braun 3, Rosenberg 3, Ottomano, Saba, K. Kane.
Top Photo: Lansdale Catholic’s Noah Saba dishes off a pass against Germantown Academy’s Cole Storm during their game on Friday, Dec. 9, 2016. (Bob Raines/Digital First Media)
