Jack Gillespie’s clutch three sends Pennridge past La Salle, into PIAA-6A title game

WEST NORRITON >> Pennridge senior Jack Gillespie only made two shots Tuesday night, but they may have been the two biggest shots of the game.

He hit a three-pointer to cap off an 8-0 run late in the third quarter after Trent Fisher saved an offensive rebound from going out of bounds to give the Rams a six-point lead.

His second sent Pennridge to the state championship game.

Gillespie drilled another three with 42.5 seconds remaining to break a 47-all tie and lift the Rams to a 52-47 win over La Salle in the PIAA Class 6A semifinals at Norristown Area High School.

“It was a shot we practice every single day in practice,” Gillespie said, “so once I had that muscle memory-type motion, it felt pretty good leaving my hands. Once it went in I felt pretty good. I had a pretty good feeling with the time and the score.”

“For the first half of the year people were like, ‘Why are you playing (Gillespie)?’” Pennridge coach Dean Behrens said. “He couldn’t hit the backside of a barn. You think about it and you have other guys — younger guys. He’s a senior. Do we give (the other guys) a shot? I kept saying, ‘He really shoots the ball well in practice. He’s going to break out of this.’ One of the (Central Bucks) teams we played he got off a little bit. I said, ‘I think Jack’s ready to roll.’ Wow, what a spark off the bench for us.”

La Salle senior Zach Crisler missed a long three-pointer to tie the game on the ensuing possession and Pennridge grabbed the rebound. John Dominic was fouled and hit both free throws with 17.4 second left to close out the win, 52-47.

The Rams will District 10 champion Kennedy Catholic in the championship game 8 p.m. Saturday at the Giant Center in Hershey.

Pennridge needed a game-winner after La Salle used an 11-2 fourth-quarter run to erase a nine-point deficit and tie the game at 47. The Rams committed four of their nine turnovers in the fourth and struggled with La Salle’s pressure, but figured it out on the game-winning play.

Sean Yoder dribbled into a trap at halfcourt and found John Dominic, who quickly passed along to Gillespie wide open for three.

“They threw a trap at me right over the halfcourt line,” Yoder, who made the game-winning shot in Pennridge’s quarterfinal with over Methacton, said. “I found John Dom. John Dom hit one pass to Jack in that corner and Jack shoots a huge shot. It’s just stuff like that — giving it up when you’re double-teamed. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the team. We’ve been preaching that all year.”

“We tied the game up and I think we just got a little out of sorts on the court and we doubled,” Crisler said of the Explorers defense. “It wasn’t the best time to double. It gave them an open three, but that’s just one of those things — it’s just a small part of the game. It was a big shot for (Gillespie), but it’s just a small part of a bunch of things we did wrong. I don’t want to dwell on that just because we had a great season, one of the most historic seasons in La Salle history. It was a lot of fun, but coming down to the end I think it’s the little plays like that we could have finished on.”

Pennridge had its largest lead of the game, 45-36, early in the fourth quarter. The Explorers responded with an 11-2 run, keyed by eight Konrad Kiszka points. They tied the game at 47 with 53.5 seconds left on a Kiszka fast-break two-hand dunk after a turnover.

“It’s a game of runs,” Yoder said. “We knew that coming in. We knew they were going to take their punch at us, whether it was in that third quarter or that fourth quarter, but they were going to make another run at us and they did. Fortunately we answered.”

“I think they just came a little hungrier than we were,” Crisler said. “They were ready to play. They came out and punched us in the face. We gave them a little bit of a run, but you could just tell down the stretch they were ready to put us away and that’s what they did. Good luck to them in the state championship. They deserved it.”

The teams played to a 16-16 tie in the first quarter. Dominic had two threes in the first eight minutes and led Pennridge with eight points. La Salle’s Allen Powell matched him with eight points, including a pair of triples.

Rams forward Fisher started the second quarter with a personal 5-0 run. He hit a jumper, grabbed a defensive rebound and knocked down a three in the first 50 seconds to give Pennridge a 21-16 lead.

La Salle’s Jack Rothenberg and Powell hit back-to-back three-pointers later in the second to put the Explorers ahead, 22-21.

Luke Yoder capped off the first-half scoring, hitting a three to give Pennridge a 24-22 lead, the seventh lead change of the opening 16 minutes.

Pennridge took control at the end of a back-and-forth third quarter. Sean Yoder hit a three-pointer to give the Rams a 35-34 lead, the game’s 13th and final lead change, and start an 8-0 run, which was capped by Gillespie’s first three.

They took a 42-36 edge to the fourth.

Dominic led the Rams with 15 points and Yoder had 13.

Kiszka led La Salle with 15 points and Powell added 14.