Great Valley fends off Upper Perkiomen in district opener, 54-43
EAST WHITELAND >> A week ago, the Great Valley High School boys basketball team lost a lopsided game in the Ches-Mont League semifinals to Bishop Shanahan. The Patriots were determined to show that was not the kind of basketball they play.
In the opening round of the District 1 Class 5A playoffs Wednesday, the Patriots got things back to normal — playing good defense, taking good shots and hitting their free throws.
Second-seeded Great Valley did all of that and more en route to a 54-43 win over No. 15 Upper Perkiomen. Great Valley led wire-to-wire as Alex Capitano iced things by going 8-for-8 from the foul line in the fourth quarter.
The Patriots will host Springfield (Delco) on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the quarterfinals with a state berth on the line.
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“We definitely wanted to come out with more energy and intensity than we did last week,” Great Valley’s Robert Geiss said. “We wanted to show people that was not our best game. Tonight, we moved the ball and played with a lot of intensity on defense. That is when we are playing our best, when we move without the ball and get good shots.”
Great Valley (18-6) got enough good shots to take a 21-15 lead at halftime. Then, the Patriots extended their lead to 34-26 after three. Despite shooting just 15-for-47 on the night, Upper Perkiomen (12-11) drew to 34-28 when junior Ryan Kendra hit a medium-ranged jumper at the start of the fourth. Kendra led the Indians with 16 points and Great Valley coach Paul Girone said that stopping him was job one for his team.
“We knew coming into the game that we had to stop Kendra, so we put Geiss on him,” Girone said. “And Robert did a good job on him the whole game. Even the shots he made were difficult shots and we were happy that we slowed him down. We also wanted to stop (Liam) Boyle (five points), and we did that with help defense. I was pretty happy overall with our effort tonight, although we still had too many unforced turnovers.”
Try as they might, the Indians could never get closer than four points in the final stanza. Nolan Graber, who had 10 points to go along with eight rebounds, scored in tight with 4:05 to play to make it a 34-30 game.
But, Liam Ward found an uncovered Geiss under the basket for a layup and a 36-30 Great Valley lead. Will Walker came right back and scored in the lane as the underdog Indians were hanging very tough.
Gavin Frankenheimer, who buried three long 3-pointers off the bench, found Geiss underneath for a 38-32 lead. Then foul shooting took over for Great Valley. Overall, they converted on 18-of-20 from the line.
“My job is to come off the bench, pass the ball, play good defense and hit open shots when I can,” Frankenheimer said. “Tonight, we came out strong and we had a lot of energy. The coaches had a great gameplan for us and we just went out and did it.”
The Pats hit six consecutive free throws — four by Capitano, who led all scorers with 16 points. The game was sealed when Nate Graef took a feed from Capitano to score for a 43-32 advantage and to book their passage into the quarterfinals.
“It was great to get Alex back from injury. He is something like a 90 percent foul shooter, and that was big for us tonight.” Girone said.
Upper Perkiomen, a junior laden team that won 12 games this season after winning just six games the past two seasons, battled hard to the end, something that coach Jared Krupp was proud of.
“We got behind early. Basketball is a game of runs and we never were able to get on one,” he said. “Every time it looked like we were getting started, they came right back. Great Valley is very well coached and they do everything right and we hung in there with them. We are not the past Upper Perk teams that finished at the bottom of the league. We played the No. 2 seed tonight and we hung in there with them, so I feel it was a good experience for our kids.”
