UPPER MERION >> Phoenixville’s 20-point lead over Upper Merion in the middle of the third quarter Tuesday night was trimmed to six in a matter of minutes. The advantage got back to 10 by the end of the quarter and stayed there early in the fourth outside of a few possessions with 12 and eight-point differentials.
With a 10-point lead and five minutes left, Phoenixville’s Max Lebisky took over. The senior hit a three-pointer to start a 12-2 run that doubled the Phantoms lead back to 20 in less than three minutes and secured a Pioneer Athletic Conference Frontier Division win, 74-59, at Upper Merion Area High School.
Lebisky had a hand in all 12 points during the game-sealing stretch. After hitting the three-pointer to make it a 59-46 game, he tallied back-to-back assists to Christian Cervino to make it 63-48. He completed a three-point play and hit a pair of free throws to give the Phantoms (8-4, 3-1 PAC, 3-0 PAC Frontier) a 68-48 lead as Upper Merion emptied its bench with 2:06 remaining.
“I was just trying to get the lead back,” Lebisky said of his dominant fourth quarter. “I think we were up like 17 at halftime and then they came back. Our energy was low, so I was trying to bring a spark – get everybody going, get our guys going and ultimately pull away with it.”
“That’s a seasoned vet right there,” Upper Merion coach Jason Quenzer said of Lebisky. “He just put his foot down and went to work. It’s tough to stop, especially with our bigs in foul trouble-ish.”
Lebisky finished with game-highs in points (22), rebounds (15) and assists (six).
“(Upper Merion is) not an overly big team,” the 6-foot-5 forward credited for his impressive night, “so just pounding right at it, finding my guys, rebounding, crashing glass.”
“Max is a very special player because he can do a little bit of everything,” Phoenixville coach Eric Burnett said. “He’s a facilitator, he can score, he’s an inside presence, he can rebound. We just have to be better overall in terms of getting key stops, not letting key players on the other team get easier shots. We lost some focus (in the third quarter) and it showed. We let out lack of shot-making dictate our defense. It can’t be that way.”
The Vikings (5-5, 2-2 PAC, 1-2 PAC Frontier) played from behind almost the entire night. After taking a 2-0 lead, they trailed 12-2 in the first quarter. A 25-19 second-quarter deficit grew to 39-22 at halftime and expanded to 44-24 in the third quarter.
Upper Merion rattled off 14 straight points after trailing 46-26. Allen Cole started the run with back-to-back threes and Nick Smiley completed a three-point play. Josh Nyugen followed with a triple of his own and an Elijah Davis layup made it 46-40.
“I thought (Phoenixville) did a good job in the first half of capitalizing on our mistakes, our misses and getting out on the fast break,” Quenzer said. “I thought that flipped. They were missing shots or turning the ball over and we were able to use our speed to get down the court. You spend a lot of energy in a short period of time in that burst, it’s tough to sustain it for a long period of time.”
“Allen got hot, Smiley hit a couple threes, Nyugen got going,” Burnett said. “All their key guys in that run did what they do. We just lost focus in that run.”
Phoenixville’s Dawson Brown stopped the bleeding with a basket and Lebisky’s putback at the end of the third made it a 50-40 game.
Cervino added 20 points for Phoenixville while Deacon Baratta had 13 and Brown eight.
Smiley and Allen led Upper Merion with 14 points apiece and Davis added eight.
Phoenixville 74, Upper Merion 59
Phoenixville 18 21 11 24 – 74
Upper Merion 12 10 18 19 – 59
PHX: Aidan McClintock 2 0 0-0 4, Max Lebisky 7 1 5-7 22, Christian Cervino 7 2 0-0 20, Dawson Brown 4 0 0-0 8, Deacon Baratta 5 1 0-0 13, Keron Booth 2 0 1-1 5, David Meadows 1 0 0-0 2. Total 28 4 6-8 74.
UM: Nick Smiley 2 2 4-6 14, Jack McFadden 3 0 0-4 6, Josh Nguyen 1 2-2 5, Allen Cole 4 2 0-0 14, Elijah Davis 3 0 2-2 8, Zahaid Edwards-Boone 0 1 0-0 3, Bashir Riley 1 0 0-0 2, David Peck 2 0 0-0 4, Kylee Hill 1 0 1-2 3. Total 16 5 9-16 59.
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