District 1 Class 6A Boys Basketball: Jacob Nguyen, Spring-Ford get more than even with Garnet Valley

ROYERSFORD — The word that came to mind when watching Jacob Nguyen Friday night was control.

Control for the 6-4 Spring-Ford guard to get shots up over the zone defense that Garnet Valley started with in a District 1 Class 6A quarterfinal. Control to see a GV defender trying to run him off the line, pump-fake and dribble into the lane for a silky jumper. Control to help the Rams come close to shutting out Garnet Valley’s leading scorer, Jake Sniras.

It was part of a thorough controlling of the No. 8 Jaguars, Spring-Ford into the district semifinals with a 56-38 win.

Nguyen supplied 22 points on 9-for-15 shooting, including 5-for-6 from inside the arc, deploying his array of floaters and his uncanny length around the goal.

But more impressive may have been his shadowing of his close friend Sniras. His fellow sophomore entered the game as the Jags’ leading scorer at 17.1 points per game, including four massive points in the second overtime of the Jags’ states-qualifying second-round win over Methacton Tuesday. He left Royersford without having attempted a shot in the first quarter, enduring a 1-for-12 night from the field and just three points.

“We know that he’s their leading scorer,” Nguyen said. “So we had our attention on him but also respecting all the other people. And we knew if we shut him out, they wouldn’t have enough scoring. We worked together on that.”

Despite the lopsided second half, Garnet Valley (16-9) entered halftime not feeling bad. A 5-0 Rams run to end the first half, punctuated by a Nguyen wing 3-pointer at the buzzer, didn’t help. But down 25-19, Garnet Valley was in touch, especially considering that Sniras hadn’t scored yet and that the Jags had gone the first 3:55 of the second quarter without a point.

They were consistently moving the ball past Spring-Ford’s longer defenders and finding quality opportunities, but just weren’t converting enough of them.

“The first half, we definitely played a really good game,” guard Ryan Faccenda said. “I thought our offense looked really good, getting open shots, passing the ball. And then we took some bad shots and got behind in the second half.”

Nguyen scored the first four points of the third, and Spring-Ford extended its run to 11-0 bridging the halftime break for a 31-19 lead. Garnet Valley would get no closer than seven the rest of the way.

Nguyen made seven straight shots at one point, including 4-for-4 in the third quarter. EJ Campbell scored seven of his 17 points in the fourth before the coaches emptied the benches. Spring-Ford (23-2) shot 59 percent from the field (23-for-39), despite a woeful 4-for-15 from the line. Zach Zollers cleaned up the misses with 13 rebounds to go with his four points, part of a 33-23 Rams edge on the glass.

Garnet Valley’s offensive balance arrived too late. Only four Jags scored in the first half, led by 10 from Logan McKee. He finished with 14 points and nine rebounds. Faccenda, fresh off a career-high 19 against Methacton, added eight points. But they shot 13-for-42 from the field (31 percent).

“All of us weren’t making our shots,” Faccenda said. “We definitely all could’ve played better on defense, talked better, did the little things better.”

Garnet Valley exacted revenge in the last round on Methacton, which knocked it out of districts in the quarterfinals a year ago. The game before that, the 24th seed had knocked No. 9 Spring-Ford out of the tournament, overcoming a 16-point second-half deficit. Spring-Ford exited playbacks three days later, then the Rams saw Garnet Valley end their football season in districts last fall, too.

That meant Friday was time for some vengeance for Nguyen and company.

“We wanted to win this badly, especially losing to them last year and them kicking us out of the football playoffs,” he said. “We wanted this one.”