Campbell, No. 1 Spring-Ford boys basketball clinch first state berth since 2019 in win over No. 17 West Chester Henderson

ROYERSFORD >> The laundry list of accomplishments for the Spring-Ford boys basketball team was added to on Tuesday.

The Pioneer Athletic Conference champion and No. 1 seed in District 1 Class 6A had one last hurdle to clear — making states. And with a 55-47 win over No. 17 West Chester Henderson, that’s exactly what the Rams did.

For the first time since 2019, Spring-Ford (23-2) has clinched a berth to the state tournament. The Rams will host No. 8 Garnet Valley in a District 1 quarterfinal on Friday, time TBD. West Chester Henderson (14-10) falls to playbacks.

“It’s a lot of pressure and I’ve tried to shield the kids from it,” Rams coach Joe Dempsey said. “Winning 20 games in a row for a high school kid is a lot of pressure. And of course when you do that and you’re so successful in the league, the pressure is to win the league. And of course after we won the league, the pressure is to go to the state tournament.

“This game was obviously important to get that box checked. Hopefully we can relax a little bit and play some basketball without being tight.”

FINAL — No. 1 Spring-Ford 55, No. 17 West Chester Henderson 47

For the first time since 2019, the Rams are heading to states.

Spring-Ford will face the winner between No. 8 Garnet Valley and No. 9 Methacton.

WC Henderson drops to playbacks.

EJ Campbell finished with 25. pic.twitter.com/YpdIzrjIDH

— Evan Wheaton (@EvanWheaton) February 22, 2023

Leading 27-26 at halftime, Spring-Ford pulled away in a dominant third quarter, outsourcing the Warriors 14-1 in the frame.

Junior guard EJ Campbell, who scored a game-high 25 points, opened the floodgates with a layup off a turnover to kick off the third quarter, followed by back-to-back buckets from point guard Jacob Nguyen to cap a six-point run.

West Chester Henderson guard K’mari Smith (15 points) shot 1-of-2 at the line to break up the Rams’ run before the scoring onslaught continued.

“Coach Dempsey drew up some good plays and we’ve been working on our ball handling to get to the rack,” Campbell said. “Really just attacking the lane and getting fouls.”

Campbell scored eight of his 25 points in the third quarter, ballooning Spring-Ford’s lead to 41-27 entering the fourth. Nguyen poured on 12 points and the Rams led by as much as 15 in the final frame.

After a collective five 3-pointers from Spring-Ford in the first half, the Rams changed their scheme and focused their efforts in opening up the seams. The result was quicker ball movement and getting to the rim, all while playing complimentary defense.

The Warriors were able to cut the gap to five points with 22 seconds left, but the ditch was too deep from the PAC’s leading defense (45.1 points per game) after that one-point period.

“It’s our pride. We don’t like other people scoring on us, so we just buckle down on defense,” Campbell said. “That’s our biggest trait on our team, just playing defense.”

Q4, 5:53 — I think EJ Campbell might be good at this whole basketball thing.

Caleb Little dumps it off to Campbell for the layup and he’s up to 22.

Spring-Ford 43, WC Henderson 31 pic.twitter.com/GNZcCfYYuO

— Evan Wheaton (@EvanWheaton) February 22, 2023

West Chester Henderson was just as hot from the perimeter as Spring-Ford throughout the first half, draining four 3-pointers to match the Rams’ offensive tempo.

Junior guard Nyle Ralph-Beyer led the Warriors with 18 points. Henderson cut the game to one point on a first-quarter buzzer-beater from forward Danny Surowiec, cutting Spring-Ford’s advantage 16-15 through eight minutes.

“I think kids ended up making plays. It wasn’t necessarily anything I did coaching, they just made individual plays,” first-year Warriors coach Jason Ritter said. “I feel I didn’t prepare our kids well enough to go against a team like this. I’m disappointed in myself, but I’m proud of the kids. They battled to the very end.”

Two years ago, West Chester Henderson won just two games. Fast forward to 2022-23, the Warriors have made the District 1 tournament in back-to-back seasons and remained competitive against the top-seed in the 6A bracket.

Athletic guards like Smith — who helped Collegium to a District 1-4A title last season — have certainly aided Henderson’s growth. That, and logging tougher opponents.

“One thing I wanted to do was come in and switch our schedule around, play really good teams. And that’s what we did this year, we played really good teams, prepare us for this moment,” Ritter said. “Spring-Ford is very good. There’s a reason they’re the one-seed. They’re tough, they don’t really have flaws.”

Dempsey added, “I told my kids Saturday morning to throw the seedings out the window. (West Chester Henderson) is a Top-10 seed in this district easily.”

Connor Fleet — a junior guard who amassed 27 points in first-round win over No. 16 Pennridge — opened up big-play opportunities for the Warriors as their shooters were red-hot in the first half, but fouled out down the stretch.

With a major cog in the machine out, Spring-Ford never trailed in the second half Campbell gave the Rams what became a permanent lead, 19-18 with a 3-pointer at the 5:30 mark in the second quarter.

From there, the Rams held on to give insurance to their postseason run.

“Last year, all we had to do was win one game to get (to states). I can’t imagine they haven’t thought about that for a long time,” Dempsey said on Spring-Ford’s turnaround from last season. “I told the guys these seniors deserve to play in the state tournament. We’ve got a long way to go in the district obviously, but that monkey is off our back.”

Spring-Ford 55, West Chester Henderson 47

WC Henderson: Ralph-Beyer 6 3-3 18; Bell 0 0-0 0; Smith 5 5-7 15; Fleet 0 2-2 2; Suroweic 2 0-0 4; DeLucia 2 0-0 3; Nelson 0 0-1 0; McFadden 0 2-4 2. Totals: 15 12-1747
Spring-Ford: Campbell 10 3-4 25; Banks 0 0-2 0; Nguyen 4 2-2 12; Zollers 2 0-3 4; Little 1 3-6 6; Kelly 2 0-1 4; Lewis 2 0-0 4; Pufko 0 0-0 0. Totals: 21 9-18 55
3-point goals: Ralph-Beyer 3, DeLucia 2, Campbell 2, Nguyen 2