Ray, Haverford School hold off Longino, Germantown Academy to stay unbeaten

WHITEMARSH >> Unbeaten all season, Haverford School was uncatchable Friday night, staying firmly in front all evening long and withstanding a 35-point effort by Germantown Academy’s Jordan Longino to win 74-56 and climb to 19-0.

“I thought we were really, really good in spots,” Fords coach Bernie Rogers said, after his team improved to a perfect 7-0 in the Inter-Ac. “Longino’s pretty good. I thought we lost him a couple times, and he’s gonna burn ya.’ Other times, I thought we did a good job on him and he made some pretty tough shots.

“We had a spurt in the second and third quarters where we got three or four stops in a row and were able to break the game open a little bit.”

Haverford took an eight-point lead into the half and widened the gap to 17 in the third quarter. Christian Ray led the way for the Fords with a game-high 36 points and Jameel Brown and Jameer Nelson each had 14.

“I thought we made some good extra passes,” said Rogers, whose team created space to hit eight 3-pointers.

The Patriots (9-10, 1-6 Inter-Ac) led 16-12 early but could not maintain that pace.

“They’re a great team. They’re just a really good team,” Patriots interim coach Carlos Chubb said of the visitors. “They’re well-balanced, well-coached. They know what to do. They’ve got many options. They can go to the basket. They can shoot, rebound. They have a lot of resources on offense.

“We went at them with all we had and they came back. We tried to rotate, tried to find the right rhythm, but it just wasn’t falling.”

Longino scored 11 of his points in the first quarter, including a trio of threes. He was steady throughout, scoring six, eight and 10 in the final three quarters, but the Pats couldn’t find the balance they were looking for.

“(Longino) was playing well. We tried to find other options on offense because we wanted contributions from other players, but I think (Haverford) let him receive the ball and guarded the rest of the guys,” Chubb said.

“Hopefully we’ll just get better and keep moving in the right direction.”