Upper Dublin boosts district chances with win over Wissahickon

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Upper Dublin boys basketball coach Chris Monahan was not sure Tuesday night’s win was enough to secure a spot in the District 1-6A tournament.

But he was confident about one thing — if the Cardinals want to avoid any doubt about their playoff fate, they have to play better in their final games of the regular season.

“We have two games — we play Thursday, we play Friday and we need ‘A’ games on Thursday and Friday,” Monahan said. “If we’re in — good, we need to be playing well. If we’re not in after this, we need to win anyway. So it’s about playing well for 32 minutes. I’m not sure we did that 32 tonight but we’re going to practice tomorrow and try to do that on Thursday.”

In a Suburban One League American Conference contest were points were hard to come by — especially early — Upper Dublin pulled ahead of host Wissahickon in the second quarter and stayed there, the Corby Watkins helping the Cards fending off a late charge by the Trojans led by Eddie Fortescue to come away with a 51-42 victory.

“I tried telling our guys, they played hungrier,” Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson said. “The 50/50 balls, they won. The little rebounds that you need, they got them and that’s a team that’s hungry, that’s tired or getting beaten. And I don’t think we played with that same desperation, that same tenacity and that’s sometimes the difference between winning and losing.”

Fortescue scored a game-high 21 points, including 14 of Wissahickon’s 16 points in the fourth as the Trojans cut the margin twice down to three. But Watkins collected a few key buckets down the stretch, recording nine of his team-high 13 points in the quarter as the Cardinals pulled away with in an 8-0 run after Wissahickon got within 38-35.

“In the fourth quarter, I was thinking don’t mind the fouls, just go through the contact and score,” Watkins said. “Score regardless of anything. The whistle, go through everything, continuation, as long as you get the points up on the board it doesn’t matter.”

Drew Stover and Brian Klammer both added 11 points for the Cardinals (12-8, 6-7 conference), which shot 31 free throws and made 20 — going 12-for-16 in the fourth. UD came into Tuesday 18th in the district power rankings with 24 teams qualifying for the 6A field.

“Look, it’s down the street, it’s a rivalry, it was a close game at our place, so records don’t really mean to much,” Monahan said. “It’s their Senior Night, Eddie Fortescue is a really good player and, yeah, we come out with a win, we’re happy.”

Wissahickon (8-13, 4-9) which entered the matchup just on the outside in 26th, looks to have had its district chances end with a fourth straight defeat.

“I can’t think of the last time we’ve going into a final game with really no hope of playoffs,” Wilson said. “If we’d won this one and maybe beat Upper Moreland, maybe you have a chance. But like this, that was sort of the inevitability knocking at the door. It’s inevitable now. We need some craziness to happen, I don’t even think craziness would get us in.”

The Trojans visit Upper Moreland 7 p.m. Thursday. Upper Dublin, meanwhile, has two home games left as it tries to earn its first district appearance since 2016 —  Thursday against Springfield-Montco and then Friday vs. Faith Christian. Both games are a 7 p.m.

Two seasons ago, the Cardinals won just three games but in 2017-2018, their first year under Monahan, UD doubled their victories to six. And so far this season the Cards have improved that win total by six.

“If you look at that, I would say we’re trending upwards for sure but we got a lot of work to do,” Monahan said. “When you got Abington twice and you got PW twice a year and you got Cheltenham and you got Wissahickon, we want to keep going.

“And we have two good seniors that have done a ton for us this year and we got underclassmen that have also done a ton and that we’re looking to build for next year. We’re going in the right direction but we’re by far a finished product.”

UD was up by seven twice early in the fourth, the second time at 36-29 after Klammer hit the front end of a 1-and-1 at 6:20. But Fortescue proceeded to score the next four points — his layup off a UD backcourt turnover making it 36-33.

“The kid leaves it all out there on the floor,” said Wilson of Fortescue. “He’s going to be a guy who is dearly missed next year cause he just plays with a fire.”

Watkins’ basket off a drive had the Cards ahead 38-33 before two Fortescue free throws at 4:59 had the Trojans back within three. Watkins, however, scored again to make it 40-35 while UD pulled by hitting 6-of-8 free throws in a 1:31 span, taking a 46-35 lead on a Watkins foul shot with 2:21 left.

“Corb’s done that all year,” said Monahan of Watkins. “When we need a basket, Corb’s the guy, he leads us in scoring and as the game goes he may not be getting his looks and he didn’t get so many looks tonight but like you just said he finds a way to score, he finds a way to score around the rim, he rebounds the ball offensively and defensively. So yeah, he carried us in the fourth for sure.”

Consecutive Fortescue buckets had the Trojans’ deficit down to seven but that was as close as the home side could get — Upper Dublin pushing its lead to 10 twice late.

Neither side’s offense could get going in the first quarter. A Fortescue 3-pointer had the Trojans leading 7-4 before a late Will Mead bucket made it 7-6 at the end of the opening eight minutes.

“We felt we could score, we weren’t scoring, we missed some layups, we took some bad shots,” Monahan said. “We had a lot of turnovers in the first quarter and we just felt if we would settle down and get a good shot every time then we’re probably going to have a good chance.”

Upper Dublin took the lead for good when a Stover tap-in gave the Cards an 8-7 second-quarter lead. Micah Bootman’s 3-point play off a putback at 4:58 extended the advantage to 11-7.

UD had its advantage at 16-9 before a Carmen Ostroski basket made the margin five but Watkins’ 3-point play after corralling a loose rebound and scoring in the paint with 24.8 seconds left had the Cardinals leading 19-11 at halftime.

“They shots weren’t really falling like we wanted them to tonight cause obviously an away game and we just wanted to pull away a little bit so we could have more cushion on the offense and defense,” Watkins said.

In the third quarter, A Mike Slivka bucket had Upper Dublin ahead 24-15 but Wissahickon finally got some shots to drop, putting together an 11-4 run to get within 28-26 after two Fortescue free throws at 40.5 seconds. Klammer connected on a pair from the foul line with 4.6 seconds to make it 31-26 entering the fourth.