Two tough Tomlin misses doom Penncrest in PIAA Class 5A ouster

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FRANCONIA TWP. — There wasn’t much to be said to Marquis Tomlin as the Penncrest senior guard pulled his jersey up over his shoulders and watched Pittston Area mob the floor Friday night.

Tomlin took matters upon himself in the final minutes of a PIAA Class 5A boys basketball first-round game at Souderton High School. And but for a couple of bounces off the back iron, it would’ve been a winning decision.

Pittston had the final say in a bizarre affair, Andrew Krawczyk’s and-1 with 16.8 seconds remaining the difference-maker in a 42-40 win for the third seed from District 2.

Befitting the nuttiness of the game, Krawczyk wasn’t anticipating that he’d play the hero on a do-or-die possession.

“Honestly, I didn’t even expect to touch the ball on that possession,” Krawczyk said. “Logan (Booth) had the hot hand all night. We expected it to go to him. And he just flushed it down low, and I was right there to make the play.”

Tomlin answered by slaloming through the lane and putting up a finger-roll that bounced off back iron with six seconds left. The rebound fell to Pittston’s Brennan Higgins, after Denzel Atkinson-Boyer tried to tip it back home.

Higgins missed the front-end of his one-and-one, and after a Pittston foul to give and a deflection out of bounds, Tomlin’s last drive to the tin popped off front iron, then back, hung agonizingly in the cylinder then rolled out as the horn sounded.

“I just tell him, do your thing,” sophomore guard Ben Stanton said. “He’s a hell of a player. He’s a college basketball player. He can make those plays.”

The loss ends the fourth straight states trip for Penncrest (22-8). It’s the first time since 2017 it didn’t win its opener.

That was the denouement for a ragged four quarters of basketball, where a final-quarter surge was required to break the gravity of the 20s. Pittston started out frigid, making two of its first 17 attempts from the field (and bricking two free throws for good measure). That got Penncrest out to a 14-2 lead after one quarter.

But Penncrest started the second quarter with three straight turnovers that kept the Lions off the scoreboard for nearly four minutes against Pittston’s deliberately paced offense, an unusual counterpoint to its panic-inducing, three-quarter-court press.

Six first-half turnovers meant Penncrest needed a third-chance basket from Atkinson-Boyer to get into halftime even at 19.

“When you’re cold, you’re cold,” Krawczyk said. “You’ve got to bunker down on defense and stop all their shooters.”

“We knew they were going to make a run in that game,” Stanton said. “We just had to respond with our own run and even it up.”

Penncrest scored seven of the final nine points of the third quarter, a bona fide run, to take a 26-24 lead. Then it got weird.

Higgins scored his first points of the game to start the fourth on a deep 3-pointer. Aidan Carroll, likewise scoreless, answered with two straight bombs. Pittston’s Mike George, on his only shot attempt of the game, hit a corner 3 to put the Patriots up 37-35.

Carroll answered with two free throws, and Higgins hit a jumper to surge Pittston ahead. With 1:15 left, Tomlin cleaned up his miss and found Stanton – the 11th assist on 15 made baskets for the Lions – for a corner 3 to give Penncrest what proved to be its last lead.

“I knew they were going to be heavily contesting (Carroll),” Stanton said. “I knew I had to step up for this game. I could’ve done a better job, but I tried out there.”

Booth kept Pittston (18-9) in it with seven first-half points and 14 for the game plus seven rebounds. Higgins had five points, five assists and five rebounds. Krawczyk got to his 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting.

The statistical differences seemed slim, with 11 Penncrest turnovers to Pittston’s five, and a 26-20 rebounding edge for the Patriots. But the game’s controlled pace magnified them.

Tomlin led Penncrest with 12 points, despite missing his last four shots. Stanton scored nine, all on 3-pointers. All eight of Carroll’s points came in the fourth, and Atkinson-Boyer paired 10 points with 10 rebounds.

It sends the Lions into a familiar offseason. They lost their three principal scorers last year, and this season they bid adieu to Tomlin and Carroll. But Stanton and the other underclassmen have the legacy those players leave behind indelibly burned in their memory.

“We’ve got to keep it going,” Stanton said. “They started it, and we’ve got to keep it going for them.”

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Matthew De George

Matthew De George
Matthew De George is the Asst. Sports Editor and the lead Union writer for The Daily Times.

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