Cheltenham tops Upper Dublin despite off night

UPPER DUBLIN >> It was a win for Cheltenham, but not one the Panthers were in a rush to celebrate.

There’s a standard the Panthers boys basketball team wants to live up to and Tuesday night wasn’t a performance worthy of it. It wasn’t a particularly good offensive night for Cheltenham but the team’s defense was strong enough to frustrate Upper Dublin when it had to.

Cheltenham withstood a big night from the Cardinals’ Drew Stover to pick up a 58-49 win in SOL American play at Upper Dublin.

“For us, the biggest thing is playing defense and staying together,” Cheltenham coach Patrick Fleury said. “Adversity will hit us at different parts of the year and our response will be the biggest thing. The win, we’ll take it, but tonight wasn’t us. It wasn’t a good showing, we need to get re-focused and that’s the reality.”

The Panthers are going to lose the size advantage to most teams they play this season and the Cardinals knew they had a good matchup if they could get Stover the ball inside. When they did, the 6-foot-7 junior did work, scoring a game-high 29 points.

Getting the ball to their big man was the challenge, however. Cheltenham will defend the length of the floor and the Panthers hounded the ball up the floor all game, which led to a fair share of turnovers.

After trading runs for the first quarter and a half, Upper Dublin took a 21-18 lead on Aidan Pullian’s free throws with 4:41 left in the second quarter. Cheltenham answered by turning up the defense, sending a second defender at the ball and using a couple turnovers to fuel an 11-0 run.

“You have to get a good shot every time and look, that’s their specialty and we knew that coming in,” UD coach Chris Monahan said. “They’re fast, they’re going to put pressure. At times we handled it alright but too many times we did not and that was our demise.”

Upper Dublin certainly missed senior point guard Jason Williams, who is inching closer to a return from injury but as Monahan noted, Cheltenham didn’t have senior Zahree Harrison. Harrison, the St. Francis (Pa.) bound guard, has been out since the opening quarter of the season with a knee injury but did dress and warm up on Tuesday.

Justin Moore has stepped up in Harrison’s stead and led the Panthers with 19 points against the Cardinals.

Cheltenham took a 29-23 lead into the half and extended it to a 10-point advantage on Saleem Payne’s score midway through the third quarter. The Panthers made it a slow crawl for Upper Dublin but when the Cardinals did get into a halfcourt offense and found Stover, they usually got a score out of it.

“You’re going to have games like this where things aren’t going right and the energy and response is what’s important,” Fleury said. “I’m proud of our group but there are some small things that aren’t basketball related we have to focus on. Our thing this year is ‘turn to each other and not on each other,’ right now a lot of people think we’re doing well but I think we need to do a lot better in a lot of different areas.”

Fleury also credited the Cardinals for their effort on both sides of the ball and expects them to be an even tougher out the second time around.

Getting by the Panthers defenders required a lot of work and it was a similar story on the defensive end, where Cheltenham used its quickness to make Upper Dublin work. While Cheltenham wasn’t its sharpest in terms of finishing or finding the right shot every trip, it did take its toll.

Monahan felt like his team got sped up too many times, something he attributed to the way Cheltenham is built to play against.

“At five spots, they’re all very fast and they can put pressure on you for 94 feet from all five spots,” Monahan said. “They’re also hard to guard because they’re making you work, you have to worry about rebounding and expending all that energy on the defensive end and all of the sudden, when you have the ball, you’re gassed a little bit and they’re right there in your face.”

Cheltenham got the lead up to 12 in the fourth quarter while Moore and Sean Emfinger finished strong to answer each Cardinals score in the frame.

Both teams face another major test at the end of the week. Cheltenham visits Plymouth Whitemarsh on Friday night while Upper Dublin plays host to Abington the same night. Monahan said it’s much the same plan, with Abington’s athletic group a little bigger but posing similar challenges to Cheltenham’s defensive pressure.

On the Panthers’ end, it’s a matter of putting together a better effort without losing any focus of what type of opponent they’re up against.

“All the teams in the league are strong this year, I see the league as wide open and to that point, we have to do our job of making sure we control our own destiny,” Fleury said. “We have to be respectful in the way we go about things but at the same time stay hungry and know what our goal is. Our community is a great community and we want to represent that well.”

CHELTENHAM 58, UPPER DUBLIN 49
CHELTENHAM 16 13 9 20 – 58
UPPER DUBLIN 12 11 8 18 – 49
Cheltenham: Travis Coleman 3 0-0 6, Brandon Scott 1 0-0 2, Justin Moore 7 4-6 19, Michael McClain 1 0-0 2, Sean Emfinger 4 0-0 9, Jaelen McGlone 3 3-6 10, Saleem Payne 2 1-2 5, Brandon Hawkins 2 1-2 5. Totals: 23 9-16 58.
Upper Dublin: Bazel Brady 1 3-4 5, Drew Stover 12 5-10 29, Will Mead 2 2-2 6, Amare Johnson 1 0-2 3, Aidan Pullian 3 0-2 6. Totals: 19 10-20 49.
3-pointers; C – Moore, Emfinger, McGlone; UD – Johnson.