Penn Wood earns state berth with 2OT playback win over Spring-Ford

UPPER PROVIDENCE >> Seldom does a team have to go through so much with so much at stake.

Spring-Ford and Penn Wood faced a classic do-or-die situation Friday when they met in a District 1 Class 6A playback game on the Rams’ home floor. It was the ultimate move-on-or-go-home scenario: The winner qualifying for the PIAA 6A playoffs, the loser seeing its season come to an end.

At the end, it was Penn Wood coming away with a 40-38 double-overtime victory over the Rams. Evan Borward scored three points on three possessions in the final 44 seconds to help erase Spring-Ford’s tenuous 37-36 lead, and the home team managed just one free throw with seven seconds left to close out the affair.

“We’ve been to states two of the last five years,” PW head coach Matt Lindeman noted, “But it’s a different story with playbacks. It was hard and tense, but our kids did their best.”

It was 80 minutes — four eight-minute quarters, two four-minute overtimes — of shots that didn’t go through the nets, free throws that missed the mark, passes that flew out of bounds instead of into players’ hands and mad scrambles for loose balls.

Through it all, Penn Wood (14-7) hung tough. The district’s 17th seed, coming off a tough 56-39 loss to Methacton three days earlier, got 13 points from Borward and seven more from Mekhi Shillingford as it forced the first OT with Sadiq Fountain making the first of two free throws with 55 seconds left — the final score of regulation.

Spring-Ford (13-8), the district’s eighth seed, pulled even at the end of the first OT with Jake Kressley (17 points) hitting the first of two foul shots with nine seconds left. It was coming off an equally-disheartening 53-50 loss to 24th seed Garnet Valley three nights earlier.

“I’ve never been in more close games,” SF head coach Joe Dempsey said. “We had four games with scores under 3-5 points out of 22 games. That’s a lot for kids to go through.”

Lindeman, for his part, was unsure how his players would come out off Tuesday’s loss. It was down by six points (23-17) at the start of the third quarter but made it a two-point (23-21) game after three, pulling even less than a minute into the fourth when Fountain banked in a shot off a steal.

“I’m most proud of the kids,” he said. “We knew we were going to have to defend every play.”

The game was a microcosm of the Rams’ first campaign under Dempsey, a late appointment to the position. It dealt with a COVID break during the season that prevented it from getting in the full complement of regular-season games, and it missed qualifying for the Pioneer Athletic Conference’s Final Six playoffs on a tiebreaker.

Through it all, Dempsey had the highest regard for his players … specifically seniors Braden Huntington, Kressley, Cole Turner and Gavin Schauder.

“You can’t ask for four better kids,” he said. “All the kids worked hard and respected our coaches.”

The hotly-contested first half ended in Spring-Ford’s favor, 20-17. Kressley had nine in that stretch, including five in a row in a 2:19 span of the second quarter when he hit the front end of a pair of free throws, a banker off an inside feed from Gavin Schauder and two more foul shots.

Jacob Nguyen was key to the Rams heading the first quarter, 10-7. He buried a pair of 3-point baskets in the final 3:27 to reverse a 7-4 Penn Wood lead into a 10-7 Ram advantage.

The Patriots, who shot 9-for-21 from the line for the night, saw a chance to win the game in regulation time go by the wayside when Fountain missed the second shot of a one-and-one with 55 seconds left. It proved even bigger with Spring-Ford unable to bucket several tries in the final 18 seconds.

“If there was one more free throw made, it could have been different,” Lindeman said. “Every play mattered.”

Missed foul shots by both sides contributed to the deadlock in the first OT. Shillingford’s basket with 30 seconds remaining gave PW a 35-34 lead, but Kressley pulled the Rams even with his 1-for-2 at the line.

In the second OT, Turner gave Spring-Ford a 37-36 lead driving the lane for a jumper. Borward answered with a basket at the 44-second mark, Sahmir Massenburg tacked on a free throw 10 seconds later and Borward hit another foul shot to make it a 40-37 game.

Spring-Ford showed balance behind Kressley, Turner getting eight points while Schauder and Nguyen had seven apiece. The Rams had a better night at the charity stripe, making 10 of 20 tries in what ended up their season finale.

“I’m hoping our kids grow athletically,” Dempsey said.