ASTON — Aaron Freeman didn’t factor into Sun Valley’s plans at the start of the season. He was a junior up from JV and wasn’t expected to play a lot of minutes.
Those plans changed quickly.
“Aaron at the beginning of the season wasn’t necessarily in the rotation,” coach Steve Maloney said. “Shows how smart I am.”
Maloney, a known wisecracker, was being facetious.
Freeman eventually forced himself into the starting lineup and provided the Vanguards with another versatile and speedy ball handler alongside senior Noah Griffin, who is every team’s worst nightmare when facing Sun Valley.
When the game was on the line Friday night, in the final moments of a District 1 Class 5A first-round slugfest with Marple Newtown, Maloney entrusted Freeman with the ball.
Out of a timeout, with 10.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Freeman made a quick move to his left and got a step on Tigers guard Steven Tansey. Freeman dribbled straight to the hoop and scored the go-ahead basket with 4.2 seconds to go. No. 11 Marple Newtown’s last chance was snuffed out, an inbound pass intercepted by Blaise Eldridge, as sixth-seeded Sun Valley held on for a 43-41 victory.
The Vanguards (16-9) travel to No. 3 Radnor (19-4) in Wednesday’s quarterfinal round.
“When we made the change and put him in the lineup, his energy is something the kids feed off,” Maloney said. “And late in the game, (Marple) didn’t want Noah to beat them. We saw what they were doing and we had a counter on that play. We’ve won games on that play this year, and that’s just Aaron coming out instead of Noah. For a junior and a first-year varsity player to have that much confidence in himself is a great thing.”
With the win, the Vanguards also avenged last year’s loss to the Tigers in the first round of the tournament.
Freeman was upset with himself early in the game, even though he came away with a steal right out of gate, setting the tone for a turnover-filled first half by the visiting Tigers.
“I struggled in the first half, but finally figured out how to take care of the ball and finish at the rim. It went in, but it was ugly,” said Freeman, who closed with seven points and two steals. “We knew they were going to face-guard Noah (13 points), who was great all game. We had to call another timeout and we drew it up. And coach said, ‘Aaron, you get it and you’re going to the rim.’ So that’s what I did.”
All night the Tigers had trouble getting 1,000-point scorer and junior guard Matt Gardler open looks.
“We went into this thing knowing they were a great team and knowing that they have No. 13 (Gardler) who is a great player,” Freeman said.
It was a testament to the Vanguards’ stifling 1-3-1 defense, which rendered the silky smooth shot of Gardler inconsequential. He hit back-to-back 3-pointers for his first six points late in the second quarter, pulling the Tigers within a point at halftime, but the junior sniper finished with only nine points on 3-for-5 shooting.
“He is one of the best players we’ve played,” said the power forward Eldridge, who had 11 points and six rebounds. “I thought we did a great job on him.”
Part of the reason for Gardler’s unusually quiet output was the Tigers’ inability to take care of the ball. They began the game with giveaways on four of their first five possessions, and were fortunate to be down by one point at the break.
“We had eight turnovers in the first quarter and 12 in the first half. That’s 12 possessions you don’t have a chance to score and you give them 12 extra chances to score,” Marple Newtown coach Sean Spratt said. “I felt like we were playing catch up the whole time even though it was a close game. And when we got a lead we missed opportunities to expand it. Their defense was good. It wasn’t like we traveled 12 times, they played that 1-3-1 and they moved really well.”
Kaiden Robinson hit a long deuce to give Sun Valley a 34-29 lead late in the third quarter. The Vanguards led by as many as six in the period.
In the fourth, the Tigers clawed back. Gardler opened the stanza with his third trey and Ryan Keating, who led everyone with 16 points, scored inside to put Marple up 37-36.
PJ Esposito hit two foul shots to make it a three-point game, but the Vanguards pulled even on a Robinson 3-pointer. Griffin drove to the bucket for two to put Sun Valley back in front, and then Keating tied it at 41 with his seventh field goal.
Sun Valley knows a thing or two about winning tight games.
“There’s nothing better than making the game winning play after everything we went through. Nothing tops it,” Eldridge said. “We’ve had a bunch of close games. We’ve had seven or eight of them where it’s just close the entire time, like crazy. Last year that is something we struggled with, so this year we really take pride in making sure we finish those games. And we’ve done that every single time.”
