By Neil Geoghegan
ngeoghegan@21st-centurymedia.com
@NeilMGeoghegan on Twitter
CALN >> Coatesville’s less than stellar 50-43 boys’ basketball win on Tuesday is explainable if you understand that it was a spot fraught with peril.
Just three days after falling by three at Chester to end any district title hopes, the Red Raiders drew a gutsy Springfield (Delco) squad that is playing its best and is built to frustrate an opponent like Coatesville.
“To beat them is no small task,” said Raiders’ head coach John Allen.
“(Springfield) makes it ugly and you have to play through it. They’ve done it all season. But we respect them and the system that they play is good for them.”
Fifth-seeded Coatesville (20-7 overall) led most of the way and never trailed in the second half of the District 1 6A Playback contest, but the visiting Cougars were stubborn and were constantly lurking for the upset.
“We lacked a lot of energy today,” acknowledged Raiders’ senior Dior Kennedy. “The loss to Chester really hurt us and we had two tough practices after that. And then today it was just another form of adversity and you have to get through it.”
In one of those tough practices, Kennedy took an inadvertent elbow to the left eye from a teammate that required several stitches. The 6-foot-3 forward wore a protective mask in the first half before taking it off for good.
“It’s hard to wear a mask when you’ve never worn one. It’s hard to breathe, it gets foggy,” Allen said.
“It was the first time for me,” Kennedy added. “The trainer said to just try it. But I had to take it off and be tough about it.”
Kennedy went on to score 13 of his game-high 17 points in the second half to help Coatesville move on to host No. 6 Methacton-(7) on Friday in the battle for fifth place.
Springfield (13-13 overall) will travel to the No. 7 Central Bucks East Friday in the battle for seventh in the district. The Cougars – who have already knocked off two single-digit seeds during this postseason – snagged the 24th and final spot in the District 1 6A bracket, and have already secured a spot in states.
“We haven’t been in states for seven years, so this is all new to our guys,” said Springfield head coach Kevin McCormick. “This is all stuff we are learning from. We just gave out a great effort and now we have a job on Friday. Let’s get a win there and see where the seventh-seed gets matched up.”
Trailing by double digits, the Cougars’ Ryan Johnston culminated a 10-3 rally with a 3-pointer early in the final period to pull his team to within four at 33-29. It was a slog the rest of the way.
An inside bucket by Springfield freshman T.J. Valletti with 1:39 remaining sliced the margin to 43-39, but it was as close as the Cougars would get. The Raiders closed it out by making 7-10 free throws the rest of the way, including 5-6 by Kennedy.
“We are at a point of the season – we’ve played 27 games – and everybody is mentally tired,” Allen said. “So we have to persevere through tough opponents and ugly games. If we can do that, that’s when you make champions.”
In all, Coatesville knocked down just 14 of 21 from the line, and missed eight in the fourth quarter. Springfield also had several good looks near the basket down the stretch that failed to drop.
“We work on free throws. There is no science to it: the more you shoot, the more you make,” Allen said.
“Around the rim, I know of four off the top of my head that were right there and rimmed out,” McCormick added. “If those go in it’s a totally different game.”
The Raiders got off to a slow start and trailed by as much as seven early. But a defense-fueled 12-0 rally put Coatesville in front for good midway through the second. In all, the Cougars managed just two points (and six turnovers) in the period and trailed 18-13 at the half.
“In the first half, our mistakes fed (Coatesville’s) offense,” McCormick said. “They didn’t score much against our zone. In the third quarter we fell back far enough to where we had to do something to change it up so we got out of (the zone) and went to man-to-man.
“We just let (Coatesville) speed us up a little too much in the second and third quarters.”
The Raiders wound up forcing 18 turnovers, but of those 11 came in the middle quarters. Johnston and fellow senior forward Colin Treude each scored 15 for Springfield.
“Our football team went pretty far in the playoffs, and we had a hiccup early in the season integrating the football players into the roster,” McCormick said. “Now that we are starting to play the right way, and we have a more natural rotation, we are playing the best basketball of the season at the right time.”
Senior point guard Zuri Harris added 13 points for the Raiders.
“We made a run last season from a lower seed,” Kennedy pointed out. “We are looking forward to being a fifth seed. We got the Ches-Mont (title) this season, we missed out on districts, and now we want to go are far as we can in states.”
Coatesville 50, Springfield (Delco) 43
SPRINGFIELD – Flaherty 2 3-6 7; Treude 6 2-2 15; Johnston 6 2-3 15; Valletti 3 0-0 6. Totals 17 7-11 43.
COATESVILLE – Harris 5 1-2 13; Kennedy 4 9-12 17; Brown 2 1-1 5; Miles 3 1-4 7; W. Fowlkes 1 0-0 2; A. Fowlkes 2 2-4 6. Total 17 14-21 50.
Springfield 11 2 13 17 — 43
Coatesville 10 8 15 17 — 50
3-pointers: Treude, Johnston, Harris 2.
