ROYERSFORD — The seeding numbers will call it an upset, but good luck convincing Jack Krautzel and Jake Sniras that their Garnet Valley basketball team is an underdog against any team in District 1 or the state of Pennsylvania.
While the Jaguars entered Tuesday night’s second-round district playoff game at Spring-Ford as the tournament’s 14th seed, the duo combined for 39 of Garnet Valley’s 63 points and Garnet Valley left bound for the quarterfinals for the fourth consecutive season after outscoring the third-seeded Rams by a dozen in the second half en route to an impressive 63-49 win.
Garnet Valley has made it this far the last four seasons as a 14-seed, an 8-seed, a 4-seed and even once as the 24th and final seed, so they care very little about the number next to their name in the bracket.
“The seed only means something to everybody outside of Garnet Valley,” Krautzel said after pouring in a team-high 20 points on 8 of 11 shooting. “We know how good we are, so we don’t care about the seed. It just shows how well-coached we are every single year, because I don’t know how many teams can say they’ve made it to the district quarterfinals four years in a row.”
“One of Garnet Valley’s trademarks is that we’re always in the mix,” added Sniras, who added 19. “Whether it’s in the Central League, districts or states, we just try to play off of each other, and our coaches give us the right guidance to succeed out there. It worked out there tonight.”
It was also the third consecutive season these two teams battled against one another in districts. In 2022, the No. 24 Jaguars eliminated the No. 8 Rams in the second round; last year, Spring-Ford got payback in the quarterfinals as the district’s top seed, knocking off No. 8 Garnet Valley 56-38, something that Sniras kept in his mind for almost an entire calendar year.
“It was a big revenge game for us, because they beat us up pretty good here last year,” he said.
The Rams, coming off a two-point loss to Phoenixville in the Pioneer Athletic Conference title game on Feb. 14, find themselves in unfamiliar waters, having lost two games in a row for the first time since early December when they dropped their first two contests of the season. The night started off happily enough, as the team honored junior Jacob Nguyen for becoming the 14th player in school history to score 1,000 career points, a milestone he hit in the loss to Phoenixville.
Nguyen has been on fire from downtown of late but struggled in this one, shooting just 2 of 13 from beyond the arc and finishing with 11 points. Senior guard EJ Campbell made three first-quarter 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 21 points, but for the second straight game Spring-Ford struggled to get much production outside of its top two scorers. Tommy Kelly chipped in nine points, but defenses now seem to know that slowing down one of Campbell or Nguyen could lead to success.
“We’re struggling to score beyond our top two guys,” Rams head coach Joe Dempsey said. “They had a good game plan and handled our defensive pressure. They were poised, made some 3’s and their foul shots. They’re a worthy opponent. They’re tough and deserved to win and move on. Hats off to them, they played very well.”
The Rams (18-7) ran into trouble almost immediately, as Krautzel scored eight of his team’s first 10 points to build a quick 10-2 lead out of the chute. Campbell willed them back into it with 11 first-quarter points to tie the score at 16 heading into quarter two.
Garnet Valley guard Quinn O’Hara scored eight of his 12 points in the second quarter, including six straight, as his team opened up a 29-20 lead. But again, Spring-Ford rallied, this time behind eight second-quarter points from Nguyen, and the Jaguars entered halftime with a slim 29-27 advantage.
After Krautzel scored 13 of his 20 in the first half, it was Sniras who started sizzling after the break. He deposited 10 of Garnet Valley’s 14 third-quarter points, including the last five of the period, to head into the final frame up 43-36. Spring-Ford never got closer than six the rest of the way, aided by the fact that the Jaguars (17-8) made 11 foul shots in the final quarter, shooting 14 of 20 for the game while the Rams were a dismal 2 for 10 at the stripe.
“It’s been something that’s plagued us since I became the head coach here,” Dempsey said of the foul line woes. “What are you going to do? We practice it and talk to the kids about concentrating. Is it a fatigue issue? I don’t know. There have been games we’ve put away with good foul shooting, but we’ve been inconsistent all year. Consistency has been our problem in a lot of areas.”
The Rams were aiming to win this game, punch their ticket to the state tournament and then go on a run to the district final like they did a year ago before falling to Plymouth Whitemarsh. Instead, that state berth went to Garnet Valley, while Spring-Ford will now host a play-back game on Friday night at home against No. 11 Central Bucks West, which lost to No. 6 Methacton on Tuesday. A win would get the Rams to states, but a loss would end a season that seemed to have so much promise a few days ago.
“We’re still not finished,” Dempsey said. “It’s not the route we wanted to take, but our kids have a lot of character. We’ll get in the gym tomorrow to regroup and try to get there for our two seniors. That’s who we’re playing for at this point.”
Those seniors are Jake Dellangelo and Campbell, the latter of whom shot 9 for 17 from the field on Tuesday and gave it everything he had. He’ll need more help against CB West, and perhaps that will come in the form of junior Matt Zollers, who returned to action from a foot injury for the first time in more than a month. The highly-recruited Division-I football quarterback managed two points as he worked himself back into the fold, but his presence alone should help a team that needs production and energy outside of what Campbell and Nguyen have been giving on a nightly basis.
“Matt means so much to us because he does a little bit of everything,” Dempsey said. “He rebounds, plays great defense and is not just a football player playing basketball. He’s not quite there with his shot yet and he passed a couple up tonight, but he gave us a lift and we’re just happy to have him back to be a part of it. He could have easily packed it in with all of his scholarship offers, which says a lot about his character.”
While Dempsey and the Rams were hurting, Garnet Valley was floating on cloud nine all the way back to Delaware County. The Jaguars will head to Methacton on Friday to try to land another upset blow, though don’t refer to it as that to any of them.
“Nobody will probably believe in us to win again,” Krautzel said. “All that matters is us 15 [players] think we can win. I know we all do. We all know we can do this, and we’re all excited for it.”
Sniras said afterward that it was a goal of his coming into freshman year to make the state tournament all four of his years, and he noted that he was 3-for-3 so far.
“I’m not worried about any team in the district or state really, because I know we can compete with anyone,” Sniras said. “We’ve got a good group.”
And while the PIAA berth is something to celebrate for the Jaguars, at the same time Krautzel threw up the stop sign.
Not so fast.
“It definitely feels great as a backup that we made states, but we’re gonna make a run at this thing first,” he said. “Whether we’re up 15 or down 15, this team never quits. It’s good knowing that if we do lose that we can play again, but all of our minds are on the district championship. Let’s go all the way, then we’ll worry about states after.”
Garnet Valley 63, Spring-Ford 49
Garnet Valley 16 13 14 20 – 63
Spring-Ford 16 11 9 13 – 49
Garnet Valley: O’Hara 2 1 5-8 12, B. Krautzel 1 0 3-4 5, J. Krautzel 5 3 1-2 20, Golek 1 0 1-2 3, Sniras 7 1 2-2 19, Boruk 1 0 2-2 4, DiJoseph 0 0 0-0 0, Furchner 0 0 0-0 0, Bhogadi 0 0 0-0 0, Koehler 0 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 5 14-20 63
Spring-Ford: Kelly 4 0 1-2 9, Nguyen 2 2 1-2 11, Campbell 6 3 0-3 21, Dellangelo 0 0 0-0 0, Mokonchu 2 0 0-1 4, Zollers 1 0 0-2 2, Marsilio 1 0 0-0 2, Green 0 0 0-0 0, Barnes 0 0 0-0 0, Rose 0 0 0-0 0, Bannon 0 0 0-0 0, Peticca 0 0 0-0 0. Totals 16 5 2-10 49
