Jenkintown wins defensive thriller over Faith Christian in BAL quarters

EAST ROCKHILL >> Jenkintown thinks it is a team with championship mettle. Tuesday night, the Drakes passed a huge test in proving that , upset third-seeded Faith Christian Academy 51-47 in overtime in the quarterfinals of the Bicentennial Athletic League tournament.

During timeouts down the stretch in the fourth quarter,  Jenkintown coach Wes Emme told his five seniors on the court to finish the game, play the next possession and that championship teams don’t take possessions off.

After squandering a six-point lead that it entered the fourth quarter with, which was a very significant lead with the way the game was played, or after it fell down by four points early in overtime, there were plenty of the times the No. 6 Drakes could have crumbled to the bigger, stronger and more athletic Faith side playing on its very tough home court.

“They were tremendously resilient,” Emme said. “They pushed themselves to the point of being uncomfortable and you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. They’ve been there. That’s the nice thing about this group is they’ve all been there and they’ve all been in tough games.”

With 2:34 remaining in overtime, Jenkintown trailed by four points when guard Andres Madden stepped into a three pointer and drilled it. The field goal was only Madden’s second of the game. His first a three ball in the fourth to extend a Jenkintown lead.

“Andres Madden’s three… It was cold blooded,” Emme said. “He had been struggling from the field this year and he kept shooting. We’re down four, they’re at the free throw line and I’m (thinking) this is going to be tough, they run clock, they grind on offense, they get fouled and he just comes down steps in one, two bang three.”

While players like Madden and fellow senior guard Frank Sobolewski might not have gotten their first field goals until the fourth quarter, their impacts on the game where felt throughout, as they were tasked with defending the talented Faith guards Chris Clark, Langdon Coyle, Sawyer Smith and Isaiah Robinson.

“He has the ball in his hands and he escorting the ball and getting us into offensives and setting great screens, all of that is a part of basketball,” said Emme of Sobolewski.

The other key guard in the Faith rotation is Charles Irvin who was mostly marked by Jameson Kolb who could not have played tighter defensive if he was wearing Irvin’s jersey.

“Jameson is a tremendous on ball defender and Frank is a tremendous on ball defender,” Emme said. “He really harassed (Irvin) and made is entry passes difficult. Two parts of post defense is obviously the guys that’s guarding him, the weak side defender and then obviously on the ball. That’s one thing in the past we haven’t been great on but [Jameson’s] got great length so he’s able to deflect passes and interrupt angles and he got after it all night.”

Offensively, Kolb was aggressive in driving into the Lions’ trees and while he only made two field goals for the game, his aggression got him to the free throw line, where he made all eight of his attempts.

While winning the BAL tournament is not at the top the list of accomplishments that Jenkintown wants to get done this season, Emme acknowledges that what his team has the chance to do is not insignificant.

“It’s an opportunity to put a number on a banner,” said Emme of the tournament. “We missed an opportunity in the regular season to win the conference title but we got another opportunity. You just never know when an opportunity is going to come up and this seems to be an opportunity for us.”

Because No. 10 Bristol upsetting second-seeded Church Farm, the Drakes will have another home game Thursday, something the Drakes were not figuring on having again this season.