Boys Basketball: Great Valley storms back to defeat WC Henderson and win own tournament
EAST WHITELAND >> The Great Valley boys basketball team started very slowly Wednesday afternoon against West Chester Henderson in the championship game of the Great Valley Holiday Tournament.
The visiting Warriors jumped out to a 12-1 lead after the first four minutes. But, the Patriots rallied behind a superlative 29-point performance from Cam Wallace and 25 from Connor Gal to take the championship with an impressive 78-66 win.
Henderson (5-4) jumped out to the early lead on the strength of 10 second-chance points and the scoring of Nyle Ralph-Beyer, who ended up with 16 points for the Warriors. But, Great Valley coach CJ Savage called a strategic timeout and implored his team to start boxing out on the boards.
“We got behind early and in the timeout I stressed the importance of boxing out and not giving them anymore easy baskets. We wanted to space them out and key on number 2 (Ralph-Beyer). We wanted them to have to work hard for their baskets and they did not have to do that at the beginning of the game.”
Great Valley turned the game around in the second period, outscoring the Warriors 24-7, to take a 35-26 lead at halftime. The run was fueled by the scoring of Wallace, who was sensational all game and two long 3-pointers from Gal. Besides his 29 points, Wallace added 11 rebounds to his game.
The third period started with Wallace going coast-to-coast after a Henderson miss to make it 37-26. After a turnover, one of 15 on the day for Henderson, Gal took a nice feed from Wallace and it was a 39-26 Great Valley advantage. After another miss, Max Di Medio scored on a follow for a 41-26 advantage early in the third.
“We started out really slowly,” Gal said. “But after the early timeout, we started to do a better job on the boards by boxing out. we did not want to give them anymore second-chance points like they did to start the game. We started to eliminate that for most of the rest of the game.”
After three, Great Valley held a 58-48 lead as the Warriors stayed in the game behind the scoring of impressive sophomore Connor Fleet, who led the team with 22 points and showed a very quick first step to the basket as he drove the lane numerous times for inside baskets.
Great Valley held its lead onto its lead in the fourth as Pranav Hegde scored on a follow shot and Gal drove the lane and scored to make it a 65-50 game with 4:51 to play. Great Valley shot 51 percent from the field for the game and they’re hot shooting kept the comeback at bay.
Fleet then drove the lane for a basket to make it 65-52 Great Valley. After another Warriors turnover, Gal and Hegde hit baskets and the lead ballooned to 74-58. The outcome was decided and the Patriots won their own tournament and improved to 6-1 on the season.
“To start that slow and get behind and then come back and win the way we did against a real good team says a lot about what this team is,” Savage said. “This was a real good effort from the guys today.”
Great Valley 78, WC Henderson 66
WC HENDERSON: Sirchio 2 4-6 9, Ralph-Beyer 6 2-5 16, Porter 0 0-0 0, Fleet 8 5-5 22, Lamizana 3 2-2 9, Grim 0 0-0 0, Smink 2 4-4 8, Jarden 1 1-2 3, McFadden 0 0-0 0. Totals 22 18-23 66.
GREAT VALLEY: Di Medio 7 0-0 16, Gal 8 6-7 25, Hegde 2 1-2 5, Otterbein 1 0-0 2, Peduto 0 1-2 1, Wallace 12 5-6 29, Markowski 0 0-0 0, McDaniel 0 0-0 0. Totals 30 13-17 78.
WC Henderson 19 7 22 18-66
Great Valley 11 24 23 20-78
3-point goals: Sirchio, Ralph-Beyer 2, Fleet, Lamizana, Di Medio 2, Gal 3.
