Paoletti’s inside work saves Marple Newtown

NEWTOWN SQUARE — Joey Paoletti summed it up pretty succinctly Tuesday night. His Marple Newtown team trailed by nine at halftime against winless Springfield. And the culprit, from a team perspective, was easy to spot.

“We had four shots inside the paint in the first half,” the junior guard said bluntly. “We knew we needed to drive the ball, so we tried to get inside and tried to get some quicker buckets.”

Paoletti summarized it so well because he was the one who had executed it just as tidily.

Paoletti scored all 11 of his points in the second half, waking the Tigers from a barren first half to rally past Springfield, 47-43, in a taut Central League affair.

Against the 3-2 zone deployed by the Cougars, Marple Newtown was lulled out of any offensive rhythm. At halftime, when they trailed 26-17, they had just one two-point basket — a putback of a missed 3-pointer — and one empty trip to the free-throw line. A 5-for-14 showing from the 3-point line was clearly not enough.

Enter Paoletti, a guard not afraid to tough it out in the post. It took him a while to feel out the gaps in the zone and find the donut hole in the middle. It took no time to assert the will to make his presence in there known.

“You try to read the defense, try to read the space,” Paoletti said. “You’ve got to stay big, keep your hands, give your teammates at better look. … It’s a lot of fighting in there. There’s a lot of big bodies in there pushing around, and you’ve got to find the will to step up.”

Paoletti had nine points in the fourth quarter, as Marple (4-1, 2-1 Central), which trailed by nine midway through the third quarter, orchestrated a 21-5 run to turn the game in its favor.

Paoletti started the run by laying up and in off a bounce pass from Mike Tansey in the paint, the team’s first non-putback deuce at 3:03 of the third. He scored the first two baskets of the fourth quarter, then hit Eric McKee for an open 3-pointer to tie the game at 35.

Two possessions later, Paoletti converted an and-1 to put the Tigers up for good.

“We needed someone to step up,” McKee said, “and he was the one to step up tonight.”

With Paoletti leading the way, Marple turned the balance of its offense around. From six triples and 1-6 on 2-pointers in the first half, Marple hit just two looks beyond the arc in the second half but was 8-for-10 on 2-pointers.

That surge short-circuited what appeared to be a momentous day in the making for Springfield (0-5, 0-3), which stretched its losing streak to 30 games dating to the 2017-18 season. When Cole Rhodes hit a 3-pointer for the final installment of his game-best 14 points, it looked like the breakthrough was imminent, the Cougars up nine points with 12 minutes to play.

But a stretch of five straight turnovers followed, allowing Marple to crawl back into the game.

“We’re used to not being in that situation, so I feel like, it was too much energy and in the locker room, we were trying to get ahead of ourselves,” Rhodes said. “We were trying to play like we were already winning, so I think that’s what brought us down in the second half.”

Closing remains an issue. When Springfield got the ball across halfway, it was in good shape, shooting 53.1 percent from the field (17-for-32). But 17 turnovers, 11 in the second half, proved the Cougars undoing. Paoletti was involved there, too, with two steals to go with three assists and four rebounds.

“We were practicing that yesterday,” Paoletti said of the full-court pressure applied in the third. “We knew if we brought the energy, they wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Brian Ward had eight points for Springfield. Elijah Busby added six points in the second half to go with four assists, and M’khai Terry also had six.

McKee added 11 points; he and Joey Pettinelli (team-high three steals) hit two triples each for eight points. Tansey added nine points.

Also in the Central League:

Ridley 42, Conestoga 38 >> Malachi Williams scored a game-high 14 points, and Josh Howard had eight points, including two late free throws to ice a big road result for Ridley (3-2, 2-1). Jack Grace hit three 3-pointers to tally nine points for the Green Raiders.

Radnor 66, Harriton 63 >> Jack D’Entremont hit four 3-pointers and went 11-for-12 at the line to tally a game-high 29 points and see that the Raiders (6-0, 3-0) remain unbeaten. Lewis Robinson added 13 points, and C.J. Lane added 11.

Marcus Bradley-Lowry led Harriton with 24 points.

Upper Darby 47, Haverford 42 >> Four triples from Iyan Joshuasville helped the Royals pull away late and nab their first league win and hand the Fords their first loss. Mo Konte supplied 10 points, and CJ Dabbs had eight for the Royals (4-2, 1-2).

John Seidman led all scorers with 22 points for Haverford (4-1, 2-1), but none of the other Fords had more than two made baskets.

Lower Merion 69, Garnet Valley 56 >> Three 3-pointers from LM’s Sam Brown, who scored 19 points, put the Aces up for good.

Carl Schaller led Garent Valley with 25 points, 17 of them in the first half. Neel Beniwal chipped in 13 points, and Gannon McKee added 10 for GV (3-1, 2-1).

Penncrest 57, Strath Haven 42 >> Aidan Carroll scored 20 points, and Denzel Atkinson-Boyer paired nine points with 15 rebounds and five blocks for the Lions.