Wissahickon pulls SOL American stunner over Hatboro-Horsham
LOWER GWYNEDD >> For the first 27 minutes of Friday’s Suburban One League American Conference game Wissahickon never led at any point.
But after the Trojans took a 43-42 lead over Hatboro-Horsham at just past the five-minute mark in the fourth quarter they never trailed.
Wissahickon closed the game on a 15-3 run in the final five minutes to pull a solid 58-45 upset victory over the Hatters.
“I kept thinking like ‘man, as much as they’re a really good team, we’re also a pretty good, athletic team and we’re deep,” Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson said. “I was pleased with our effort. We put out a game plan (and executed). We kept trying the tell the kids sometimes concentration is the margin of victory.”
The Hatter controlled play for three-a-and-half quarters, turning to their two leading scorers forward Clifton Moore and guard Jay Davis. The duo combined to score 32 of Hatboro-Horsham’s 45 points as Moore led the Hatters with 11 rebounds.
“If we could focus and keep their big two from going off we got a good chance to win this game,” Wilson said. “Chaz (Owens) stayed with Clifton and Gelman stayed with (Davis). We didn’t think that was a great matchup because Davis is a really good player, but we knew if we could at least keep him on the perimeter, he’s going to shoot over anybody because he’s just an athletic kid, but not give them second and third shots, that was our goal and we were able to execute it.”
Even though Hatboro-Horsham led for most of the game, it could never put the Trojans away. Wissahickon seemed to get the key shot it needed all night which included the team hitting nine three pointers.
“They would hit a key three,” Hatboro-Horsham coach Ed Enoch said of not being able to open the scoring gap. “We struggled in our man defense and we tried to play in some zone and we would give these guys a little bit of an open look and they can shoot it.”
Wissahickon was giving up an obvious size advantage yet out-rebounded the Hatters by six, 30-24. The stellar rebounding effort for the Trojans was led by forwards Shane Ford (team-high nine rebounds) and Zach Reiner, returning from injury, chipping in seven.
“We got killed on the boards,” Enoch said. “(They had) 16 offensive rebounds. That’s just embarrassing.”
The Trojans will have a sweet taste in its mouth as they get a couple of days rest for the Christmas holiday before they face a tough Perkiomen Valley team Tuesday.
The conference play season is still very young however with the Trojans victory Friday the league is wide open. But contrarily it also wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if a team like Hatboro-Horsham got hot to see it separate itself from the pack.
“We’re a good basketball team and we’re going to get better,” Enoch said. “We’ll play this game differently in a month. Besides Cliff and Jay, we’re not a real experienced team, they’re really the only two kids who played in big minutes last year. We’re learning how to get there and sometimes early in the year its not easy.”
