Mischak shoots CR North past Lansdale Catholic to win Jim Church Classic

FRANCONIA >> DJ Mischak didn’t hesitate when the ball came his way.

Council Rock North’s senior point guard had passed up some chances to shoot the ball earlier in the game, but with time winding down in regulation, there wasn’t time to second guess. So when Hunter Wan swung him the ball, Mischak pulled up from several feet behind the arc.

His shot hit nothing but net and won the Indians a trophy.

Mischak’s big shot with three seconds left capped a furious fourth quarter rally as CR North edged Lansdale Catholic 42-38 Saturday night to win Souderton’s Jim Church Classic. The guard scored eight of his 10 points in the quarter as the Indians rallied out of a 10-point deficit.

“I passed out to Hunter Wan and I knew he was going to pass right back to me and I was going to step into it and shoot it,” Mischak, the tournament MVP, said. “I knew I was a little deep behind the 3-point line and I hadn’t been taking a lot of deep threes throughout the game but I’ve done the shot millions of times, I was going to step in and hit the shot and that’s what I did.”

For the second night in a row, it was defense that led the Indians’ effort. Struggling to score for three quarters, CR North broke out its press in the final quarter knowing it needed to do something to spark the offense.

Mischak said he and his teammates were expecting a mix of man and zone from the Crusaders but when LC came out in a 2-3, it really threw the Indians off. For three quarters, CR North couldn’t seem to find the right shot, some guys passed up looks and others just flat out missed in a cold opening to the game.

Despite that, LC was never able to pull far enough away thanks to Rock’s defensive effort.

“It doesn’t have to be pretty but you have to find a way to win and that’s what the kids did, they banded together,” CR North coach Jesse Krasna said. “We’re really proud of them as a staff. Our defense kept us in this game, we weren’t making shots but we were able to keep within striking distance.”

For the Crusaders, who won the tournament last year, Saturday felt like a game they let slip away. After making some big time plays in the fourth quarter on Friday against Souderton, they didn’t have the same level of execution in similar spots on Saturday.

A couple of turnovers certainly hurt in the fourth quarter and LC couldn’t seem to find that one play that could stem the tide.

“It seemed like a slow decline, the plays we made last night when we fell down, we did not make them tonight,” LC coach Joe Corbett said. “Credit Council Rock, they came out and really forced us into really uncomfortable spots and deserved to win at the end.

“We have two or three press breaks in, we were running them pretty well and I had confidence in them but again credit to (the Indians) they got a hand on the ball, came up with a loose ball here or a loose ball there. We turned it over once or twice on the sideline, had a double-dribble call that was a tough one but it definitely turned the flow of the game in their favor.”

Mischak started the fourth quarter with just the type of play CR North needed. The senior, who’s worked to become more of a scoring threat and initiator instead of just a passer, drove into the zone, stopped and popped in a midrange jumper that cut the score to 29-21.

Luke Vliet played a strong second fiddle to Mischak in the fourth, canning two treys to go with a steal, a rebound and an assist on Joshua Fisher’s three-point play.

 “Our fourth quarter, we went from being back on our heels to playing downhill a little bit more and attacking,” Krasna said. “That switched the momentum of the game.”

While the results didn’t come in a deluge, CR North got the lead down to five and belief started to build.

“I felt like the whole game we weren’t making a lot of shots but it was still a winnable game so once we started hitting some, we built off that,” Mischak said. “Once we hit a few and got the lead down, I knew we were winning this game.”

Kyle Kane gave LC a 33-30 lead with 2:59 left, but Mischak came down and tied it on a 3-pointer from the right wing and following an LC turnover, James Duffy found Vliet in the right corner for a go-ahead trey with 1:24 left.

After the teams traded free throws, LC’s Tim Cunane came up with another big shot on the weekend, burying a wing triple to knot the score 38-38 with 39 seconds left.

“They should be fired up and I hope they’re fired up, it’s easy to be a rah-rah when we win but when we lose a game like this, we’ll see what kind of character our guys have,” Corbett said. “I told them there’s not a lot of games on our schedule we expect to win by 12 or 15 points so we have to learn how to grind out wins. We did it last night, didn’t do it tonight but we have to learn from it.”

It was a good weekend for CR North, even with a host of players stepping into new and larger roles.

“There’s a lot of potential, there are things we can build on and we’re heading in a positive direction,” Mischak said. “It builds a lot of momentum but as some of us were saying, it’s just another business day here. Each game is its own day and we have to keep that focus and mindset that every day is a new day.”

COUNCIL ROCK NORTH 9 6 4 23 – 42
LANSDALE CATHOLIC 10 8 11 9 – 38
COUNCIL ROCK NORTH: DJ Mischak 4 0-0 10, Luke Vliet 2 0-0 6, Hunter Wan 2 4-5 10, James Duffy 2 3-4 7, Joshua Fisher 2 3-5 7, Parker Ehlin 0 2-2 2. Totals 12 12-16 42.
LANSDALE CATHOLIC: Jay Hicks 4 2-2 13, Tim Cunane 3 0-0 8, Kyle Kane 2 4-4 9, Nick Rome0 1 4-7 6, Shawn Gibbons 1 0-0 2, Hunter Healy 0 0-1 0. Totals: 11 10-18 38.
3-pointers: CRN – Mischak 2, Vliet 2, Wan 2; LC – Hicks 3, Cunane 2, Kane.