Lower Merion’s four corners offense stumps Pennridge in District 1-6A 3rd place game

LOWER MERION >> Pennridge had no answer for Lower Merion’s four corners offense.

The Aces spaced out the Rams defense and took advantage of matchups. The ball-handlers consistently beat their defenders and either finished at the rim, kicked to the three-point line or dropped a pass to a wide-open teammate under the basket.

Lower Merion used this approach for much of the game to help grab a 67-58 win over Pennridge in the District 1-6A third place game at Lower Merion High School’s Bryant Gymnasium.

“Their offense,” Pennridge coach Dean Behrens said, “that four corners they had they made a basket almost every time. We didn’t do a great job of handling that. That was a concern that I had.

“We had a difficult time staying in front of our man. We lunged at the ball too much. We still have that middle-school mentality that we can steal those passes — not at this level. This is new for most of our guys except for Jon Post and Sean Yoder. Everyone else this is brand new.”

Steven Payne and Sam Oshtry were leading the Aces offense most of the night, holding the ball just over mid-court with a teammate in each corner. When they got past their primary defender, they had plenty of help from their teammates. The Aces hit eight three-pointers in the game to keep perimeter defenders from cheating inside and Joshua Martin was active at the rim — scoring 12 points — to give them an option when they ran into a double-team in the paint.

“It’s a big part of who we are,” Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer said of the four corners offense. “We don’t always do it, but we felt like tonight we could spread it out and get some good matchups and open up the floor a little bit. It was effective.

“Steve Payne is a hard guy to keep out of the lane. We’ve got shooters in the corners. It’s just a way to shorten the game and it’s been a big part of our act for years.”

Payne finished with a team-high 16 points. Matt O’Connor matched Martin with 12, Julian Hairston had 11 and Oshtry 10.

The Aces led by as many as 13 points in the game and held an 11-point advantage with 1:36 to go in the fourth quarter.

Pennridge forward Post hit a pair of free throws and Yoder made two quick layups over a 19-second stretch to cut the deficit to five, 59-54, but that’s as close as the Rams would get. Payne went 4-for-4 on free throws and O’Connor 2-for-2 to close out the win.

Yoder finished with a game-high 18 points and added six rebounds and five assists. He only took one shot in the first half before scoring 16 after the break.

“My coaches thought that was fine,” Behrens said. “They were obviously doing a good job closing out on him and he was hitting the open man, but I do think Sean needs to take more than one shot in the first half for us to be successful. I thought in the second half he did a better job being more aggressive. He struggled from the foul line — I think he missed three foul shots, which is obviously not normal for him. We have to try to get back on track.”

“A lot of emphasis on (Yoder),” Downer said. “We thought about some box-and-one, but some of their other guys were bombing in some threes, so just a lot of attention on him and trying not to give him anything easy. He started getting loose in the second half, he went from two to 18. He’s a very good player, obviously Division I player. Him having two points at halftime was certainly a good thing.”

Lower Merion took control of the game in the second quarter. They won the frame, 22-12, to take an eight-point lead into the half. Payne scored 10 points in the eight-minute stretch while Martin had five.

Post helped the Rams get out to an early lead. He scored seven points of his 14 points in the first quarter, which Pennridge won 15-13, and five in the second.

As District 1’s No. 4 seed, Pennridge will face the District 12 No. 3 seed in the first round of the PIAA Class-6A state playoffs, Saturday March 9.

Lower Merion will face the District 11 No. 3 seed.