Germantown Academy not about to get complacent

Germantown Academy’s boys’ basketball team is off to a 3-0 start this season, impressive considering how much the Patriots are trying to replace from last season’s PAISAA runner-up.
But that nice start, which includes wins over Perkiomen School, Lansdale Catholic and Souderton, means nothing if GA gets complacent with it. The tests aren’t going to slow down any time soon, either, with a game against St. Joe’s Prep on tap this week.
Patriots coach Jim Fenerty liked a lot of what he saw from his guys this weekend, but is far from ready to call his team anything but a work in progress.
“These games were good for us,” Fenerty said. “You play on the road, you play two tough teams, Lansdale Catholic and Souderton played us really hard. One of the good things about GA is the kids know how to read and one of the bad things is the kids know how to read. They see we won three in a row, but we’re a team in transition and our league is exceptionally difficult, so I don’t want them thinking about four or five in a row.”
The team’s third game, a 57-46 win over Souderton, was more to what the Patriots are looking to be this season. Senior Kyle McCloskey found his shooting touch and poured in 20 points while fellow senior Evan-Eric Longino scored 15 to lead the offense.
Those two guys, plus senior guard Cole Storm, are the three players with significant varsity experience this season. Most of the remaining roster is young, or not used to varsity hoops and those guys are finding what roles they can best fill.
Against Souderton, it was on the defensive end.
“(Against LC) we gave up a ton of open shots and weren’t staying up on them,” McCloskey said. “Andrew Towne did a great job on (Soudy’s Mike Bealer) denying him the ball and we working hard to deny the ball and make them frustrated.”
Against LC, Longino pretty much carried GA to a win, scoring 40 of the team’s 64 points that night but the entire team knew that’s not a sustainable way for success. McCloskey said he knew it was time for him to get going, even though he was still finding his rhythm coming off football season.
Likewise, the defense needed to get tighter. Aside from Towne, GA got good efforts from Brian Basile, Ben Garcia and Khalil Ashley-Diarrah on the defensive end and as a bonus, those guys hit some shots.
“We want them being as big a part of the offense as they can be and shooting any shots they have in rhythm, all of them can score,” McCloskey said. “It’s all about defense. Defense turns into offense and (Friday) we struggled a little bit on defense but Evan kept us in it. (Saturday) we were better on defense, which led to fast breaks and (Souderton) being more out of their element.”
While GA is off to a nice start, its seniors have been around long enough to know they can’t let it be their ceiling. The next test is Wednesday against the Hawks.
“We beat St. Joe’s Prep last year and Speedy (Morris), who is a good friend, I know does not take that well,” Fenerty said. “They will come out fired up and he’s got a good, loaded team so it’s going to be a tough game.”
GHOSTS GAUNTLET >> Abington came into the season with a fair amount of hype and with good reason, at least on paper.
While the Galloping Ghosts graduated a number of valuable seniors who were key players on the District I title team two years ago, they brought back a ton of young and very talented players. With guys like junior guard Robbie Heath, sophomore big man Eric Dixon, sophomore wing Lucas Monroe and senior center Joe O’Brien, the Ghosts seemed like a preseason pick to contend for districts again.
To that end, coach Charles Grasty assembled a grueling schedule that will test the young Ghosts all year, but their opening nine days are really something else. Abington is 2-0 after winning its own tip-off tournament with wins over Haverford and Perkiomen Valley, but this coming week brings four more big-time contests.
Abington welcomes PCL power Archbishop Carroll to the Graveyard on Tuesday night at 7, then turns right around to face a loaded Archbishop Wood side at 6:30 Wednesday night at Arcaida, part of a double header with Imhotep Charter and Neuman-Goretti to follow. SOL National foe and archrival Pennsbury comes to Abington Friday at 7, then the Ghosts wrap things up Saturday night at Wood, where they face back-to-back state champion Roman Catholic at 5:45.
It’s daunting, but those are the type of teams Abington is going to see if it gets where it wants to be late in the postseason come February and March. The Ghosts also face local powers Chester and Neuman-Goretti as part of the Pete and Jameer Nelson Classic in late December at Widener.
CONTINENTAL CLASH >> Last year, North Penn and CB West’s girls’ teams met three teams. North Penn won all of them but each game was tighter and tighter, a sign of a young West team getting better as the season went on.
Friday night, they meet for the first time in 2016 at North Penn for a 7pm tip. Both teams started the season 2-0, with all the games taking place in North Penn’s gym fittingly enough. North Penn senior guard Sam Carangi scored 29 points on Saturday against Perk Valley, while West freshman Maddie Burke has fit right in with the rest of West’s energetic lineup.
It’s big game for both teams, even this early in the season, with the SOL Continental again looking to be one of the best conferences in the area, if not the state. Souderton and CB South look strong and CB East could be a factor as well.
North Penn plays Mount Saint Joseph on Wednesday while West is off until their big clash.
BIG RED REVIVAL >> Two games is a very small sample size, but the Souderton girls’ basketball team looks like it will be a factor in the SOL Continental this season.
Fresh off a win over Germantown Academy on Saturday, the Indians showed they’re going to defend with a lot of aggression this season. Adding Kate Connolly, a junior with a verbal committment to Drexel, is the biggest reason for the team’s uptick this year, but the other players haven’t slouched either.
Forward Megan Walbrandt had an impressive weekend and her effort on both ends of the floor Saturday was a perfect example of what Souderton is trying to do this season. Walbrandt, a sophomore, scored 17 points, taking and making shots without hesitation and just as important, held GA guard Rachel Balzer to just six points.
“Megan’s biggest issue last year was her nerves and it lasted about half of the season,” Souderton coach Lynn Carroll said. “Since then, she doesn’t play like a sophomore, she plays like an upperclassman.”
Point guard Tori Dowd has set the defensive tone with her high-pressure on-ball defense and has done it without fouling. Alana Cardona has been strong on the glass, guard Sami Falencki is a capable shooter and the bench unit has given good energy so far.
Souderton won the Jim Church Classic for the first time in the three years of the event, a nice start to what it hopes is a season that extends long into the postseason.
“We have a lot of goals this season and this was the first one,” Carroll said. “To check that off the list gives us a lot of confidence. I’ve been telling this group I think they’re a special group and, you have to earn everything and we needed to prove we’re capable of playing with the best teams in the area.”
Souderton’s next game is Friday night at home against Central Bucks East in a 7pm tip-off.
BUZZER-BEATERS >> Archbishop Wood girls basketball doesn’t play a home game until January 6th, and just one game in the state of Pennsylvania, Friday’s contest at Hallahan, in the month of December. Wood travels to the Nike Tournament of Champions in Arizona next week and opened the season this weekend at the She Got Game Classic in Washington, DC
* North Penn boys basketball started the season 2-0, winning the first rendition of Upper Moreland’s Tip-Off Classic. The Knights travel to 1-1 CB West on Friday.
* Plymouth-Whitemarsh’s boys team had an interesting start to its season. A clock malfunction delayed the fourth quarter of the Colonials’ win over Coatesville for more than 20 minutes before P-W rallied back from four down with 1:20 to play.