Longhorns falter late, fall to Muhlenberg in PIAA First Round

EAST MARLBOROUGH >> A strong argument can be made that Unionville’s final basketball game of the boys high school season on Friday ended much like the Longhorns’ 2022-23 campaign. Neither had an optimal finish.

Playing in front of a boisterous home crowd, Unionville played well in spurts during a round one of the PIAA Class 5A Playoffs clash against Mulhenberg. But the ’Horns were badly outplayed over the course of the final seven-plus minutes, and the Muhls pulled way late for a convincing 64-54 victory.

Unionville led much of the way, and had a lead early in the final period. But visiting Muhlenberg outscored the Longhorns 27-12 to end it. The entire season was similar as Unionville captured the Ches-Mont American Division crown, and were league and district runners-up. But the ’Horns dropped three of their final five, and end the season with a 22-6 mark.

“Honestly, this is a disappointing end,” said Unionville head coach Chris Cowles. “Our senior class was special to us. But obviously with the guys we have returning, we are optimistic for the future.”

The fifth-place team from District 3, Muhlenberg improves to 18-9 and advances to the second round to take on national power Imhotep Charter on Tuesday.

“The difference in the fourth quarter was we started to play defense,” said Muhls’ head coach Matthew Flowers. “And the harder we played on defense, and harder it became for (Unionville).”

A Charlie Kammeier 3-pointer early in the final period put Unionville in front 42-37 with 7:46 to play. But with what started as a barrage of 3-pointers of its own, Muhlenberg promptly scored 21 of the next 25 points to take command. Freshman Michael Miller came off the bench to pour in nine of his 15 points during that stretch, and senior Luis Valentin added seven of his 12 points during the surge.

“We are a 3-point shooting team,” Flowers said. “We practice it every day. I thought in the second half we didn’t settle as much as we did earlier. Plus we got downhill a little more, which is something we talked about at halftime.”

The Muhls forced seven turnovers in the final eight minutes, and had 18 overall. Unionville forced just seven on the day.

“We preach defense. We preach getting TKO’s, which is forcing turnovers and turning it into points,” Flowers said.

“We were careless with the ball and just didn’t do our normal foundational stuff,” Cowles added. “And when we got down we had to start pressing, and that is out of our natural character.

“We’ve had struggles with ball security at times. So it wasn’t as uncharacteristic as we’d like it to be. It reared its head at some bad times for us.”

The Longhorns were outscored 30-21 on 3-pointers, including five 3’s by Muhlenberg senior Josh Alcantara, who also didn’t start but scored a game-high 19 points.

“We got down on ourselves in the fourth quarter after some turnovers and just didn’t have the will or the urgency to bring ourselves back into the game,” said Unionville senior guard Robbie Logan.

The Longhorns had six empty possessions in the early going, but Logan provided a spark off the bench to help stage a 9-2 rally to take the lead early in the second quarter. Unionville led by as much as seven but the Muhls fought back to end the half with a 7-2 run and pull within two, 29-27, at the break.

The Longhorns wound up dropping their final two contests of the season, both by double digits. And a 61-36 setback to Radnor in the 5A district final last Saturday may have taken the wind out of Unionville’s sails.

“I think if we would have (beaten Radnor) we would have come out stronger and more confident than we did today,” said Logan, who scored 19 in his final high school contest.

“I thought we’d learn from that experience,” Cowles added. “I’m sure if we’d have won the district final we would have come out stronger. But Muhlenberg is a very good team. They have a lot of guys that can hit shots, and they had a couple guys that played better than they’ve played all season – at least from the film we saw.”

Juniors Nick Diehl and Kammeier scored 12 and 11, respectively, for the Longhorns.

“This was, easily, the best season with the best group of guys and coaches I’ve ever had,” Logan said. “I’m just really grateful. You can’t take anything for granted.”

Muhlenberg 64, Unionville 54

Muhlenberg                         12 15 10 27 — 64

Unionville                             13 16 10 15 — 54

MUHLENBERG – Mosquera 3 0-0 7; Alcantara 7 0-0 19; Adonis 2 0-0 4; Valentin 5 0-0 12; Collado 2 0-0 5; Miller 7 0-1 15; Towles 1 0-0 2. Totals 27 0-1 64.

UNIONVILLE – Logan 7 0-2 19; Anderson 2 0-0 4; Brown 1 1-2 3; Kammeier 3 3-5 11; Diehl 5 2-2 12; Brenner 1 2-2 5. Totals 19 8-13 54.

Three-pointers: Mosquera, Alcantara 5, Valentin 2, Collado, Miller, Logan 5, Kammeier 2, Brenner.