Defense, sophomore duo lead Pennridge past William Tennent

EAST ROCKHILL >> About midway through the second quarter of Friday’s Suburban One League Continental showdown between William Tennent and Pennridge, Tennent guard Pat McCauley got a steal and ran in for an uncontested layup.

McCauley’s basket was the easiest and the only easy hoop the Panthers got all night as McCauley’s team-high 13 points was not enough as the Rams emerged victorious 49-29.

“I thought we did a good job getting our tracer hand up, not getting lifted and balancing ourselves on the floor defensively,” Pennridge coach Dean Behrens said.

The Pennridge defense was dominating as it held Tennent to less than 10 points in three of the four quarters while holding the Panthers to 10-for-31 shooting.

“When you only score 29 points, you struggle from the field,” Tennent coach Rob Mullville said. “McCauley hit a couple threes, but we had trouble scoring. When we got it into the post (Sean) Yoder and (Jonathan Post) did a nice job of defending.”

Tennent struggled to combat the size Pennridge was able to throw at it so an injury to Markeith Baxter in the second quarter hurt the Panthers as Baxter’s rebounding ability was taken out of the game.

As the Rams took care of business on the defensive end it was a pair of sophomores who carried the brunt of the load on the offensive end as guard Sean Yoder and forward Jonathan Post combined for 38 points and 13 rebounds.

“We’ve been struggling on the boards so that was good to see,” Behrens said. “We’re putting these guys in situations as sophomores to play at this level and I think they’ve handled it extremely well.”

The conference game was obviously important for both squads but for the victors, the Rams, they pulled closer to .500 at 2-3. Pennridge had a goal as a team to enter its Jan. 10 game with North Penn with a 6-6 record, only a Saturday matchup with Wissahickon stands between the Rams and their goal.

“Our goal was to try to get to 6-6 going into North Penn,” Behrens said. “Obviously tomorrow is a non-league game, we’re 5-6 right now, we thought a goal to put out there was to be 6-6 and for that to happen we needed to win tonight.”