BETHLEHEM — There wasn’t much to be said Wednesday night as players filed solemnly out of the Delco Christian boys basketball locker room.
For a team that had won every tournament put before them this season, that had averaged 72.7 points per game in the regular season, a 3-for-24 shooting figure from 3-point range said enough. It was quite singularly the culprit for the Knights’ 59-52 loss to District 2 champion Old Forge in the second round of the PIAA Class 2A tournament.
“They hit shots,” point guard Khamai Orange summarized. “We didn’t hit shots.”
The “how” of it is a bit more complex. It’s why the District 1 and Bicentennial League champion Knights (26-3) saw a special season end at Bethlehem Liberty High, on a difficult evening on both ends of the court.
Orange encapsulated the frustration. He scored 31 points, a one-man offensive show. But he watched the final seconds of his high school career from the bench.
Orange fouled out with 55.9 seconds left on a questionable block call at midcourt. While Orange was questioning said call, he ran into one of the Old Forge players, who hit the ground hard, not the first of their dramatic falls on the night rewarded by an official’s whistle. Orange, already headed to the bench and immediately contrite for the collision, was assessed a technical foul.
Old Forge hit only two of the four free throws, but it retained the ball, part of an unconvincing 5-for-10 at the line down the stretch that nonetheless was sufficient to close out the win.
Orange’s early disqualification was not the reason why Delco Christian lost, but for a team that has scored in bunches all season, it deprived the Knights of their engine to mount a late charge.
Far more culpable was what a normally free-flowing offense didn’t do around him. Orange scored 31 points; no other Knight had more than eight. Orange hit 12 of the team’s 20 baskets, plus six steals. The other Knights combined to go 1-for-17 from deep.
And as a team, they allowed Old Forge (21-5), with its sound half-court execution and cornerstone big man Logan Fanning, to control the pace, constraining the game in the 50s.
“They played at their pace,” Orange said. “That was kind of the whole gameplan for us, play at our pace and not let them slow the game down. At halftime, we were up two. It wasn’t anything that they did to really shake us up.”
Fanning had 12 of his 17 points in the first half. He finished 7-for-8 from the field, with six rebounds and three blocks, though Delco Christian effectively minimized his impact after the break.
Cameron Parker drove the Blue Devils in the second half, with 13 of his 17 points, plus four rebounds and five assists. Ryan DeMarco added 12 points. He and Camren Krushnowski hit two well-timed 3-pointers each, the Blue Devils shooting 4-for-12 from deep and better than 50 percent (21-for-39) from the field.
Delco Christian couldn’t make enough baskets to keep up. Beau Lyren scored eight points, on 4-for-11 shooting. Bradford Berwick, who stepped up defensively by fronting Fanning, had five points on 1-for-10 shooting.
With less energy from their young wings, even 15 turnovers didn’t consistently turn into offense.
DC didn’t help its cause with some key mistakes in the fourth, the worst a very borderline charge by Berwick after he dumped off a pass to Karter Shaheed-Freeman. Had Shaheed-Freeman’s open layup stood, DC would’ve been within 55-54 with less than two minutes to play. Instead, Parker answered with a drive to extend the lead to three, and DC didn’t score again.
“When shots aren’t falling like tonight, we usually try to get downhill and try to see some baskets go in,” Orange said. “I don’t think we shot as many foul shots as we usually do. They shot more foul shots than us. I think at the end of the day, there were some forced shots by myself, but we didn’t see a lot of shots that we didn’t like. We were 3-for-24 from 3; that’s very unlike us.”
It brings a down note to a storied season from Delco Christian, which harbored visions of Hershey. But to Orange, Wednesday’s coda is minor compared to what came before.
“Everything was thrown off this game, whether it was sickness, whether it was just nerves,” Orange said. “But I think in the second half, we still showed who we are. Even in that game, we know who we are.”
