Pennridge holds off King, Downingtown East to finish 7th in District 1-6A

EAST ROCKHILL >> Pennridge missed the front end of 1-and-1s on consecutive trips to the foul line late in the fourth quarter. But that did not rattle Christian Guldin went he stepped up to the stripe in the same situation with just 20.9 seconds remaining.

“Even in plays, we turn the ball over you can’t worry about the next one,” the Rams senior said. “And I knew I was confident in myself to hit the two free throws.”

After waiting through two time outs, Guldin calmly drained both ends of his 1-and-1, pushing the Pennridge boys basketball team’s lead to five and the No. 8 seed Rams held off visiting  visiting No. 18 Downingtown East 52-48 in Friday night’s District 1-6A seventh place game despite a 28-point effort from East’s Andrew King.

“It’s huge cause when you look at going to states, you’re 1-0 going into it,” Guldin said. “And last thing we want to do is drop the last three (in districts) and then go in with a bad attitude at states which I don’t think we do but it’s always difficult to think about.”

Guldin finished with a team-high 21 points, the DeSales commit hitting four 3-pointers – three in the first quarter – while senior Trent Fisher added 11 points for the Rams (20-8), who used a 13-0 run in the third to take at 45-31 lead  before halting the Cougars’ comeback bid in the fourth.

“I wanted to get my shot going right away instead of waiting,” Guldin said. “The last couple games I waited too long and I missed a few. But trying to get into a rhythm right off the jump. Yeah, it was just huge and then my teammates got me the ball, found me in transition which was “huge.

The victory has Pennridge facing the District 2/4 champ – either Scranton or Wilkes-Barre Area – in the first round of the PIAA-6A Tournament on Saturday, March 7. Downingtown East (14-13), as District 1’s eighth seed, takes on the District 11 champ – either Freedom or Northampton – in its state opener.

“You get into states, listen I’d travel to Pittsburgh,” Pennridge coach Dean Behrens said. “I’d travel to freaking Meadville if we need to – Punxsutawney.”

The Rams are making their third consecutive appearance in PIAAs, last season advance to the 6A final before falling to Kennedy Catholic.

King scored the Cougars’ first 12 points, the 6-foot-6 senior showcasing his offensive versatility in starting the second quarter with seven straight points on a foul-line jumper, a dunk then a 3-pointer. He knocked down five treys on the night – the last to cap a personal six-point burst to get East within 49-46 in the fourth.

“We were trying to double him now on every single time that he went off a pick-and-roll or got the ball on the post,” said Behrens of King. “And we still weren’t picking him up early enough. You can’t say it enough he’s going to shoot the 30-footer. He’s got great range.”

David Owsik registered 10 points for the Cougars, who are heading to states for the second straight year. 

With East down 49-40, King scored inside then hit a free throw at 2:52 to pull the Cougars within six. After the Rams missed a 1-and-1 with 54.7 seconds, King knocked down a trey to make it 49-46.

“He’s a really good player and in practice we talked about doubling and trying to make him hit tough shots,” said Guldin of King. “And he hit those tough shots, which it’s going to happen but the last thing we want to do it get the other guys get going too which we did a pretty good job doing that.” 

Downingtown East got a chance to tie after another front end 1-and-1 miss by the Rams with 35.2 seconds left but Owsik’s three try from the left wing was off-target. Guldin grabbed the rebound, was fouled and hit both ends of his 1-and-1 for a 51-46 lead at 20.9 seconds.

King hit a long turnaround jumper to get East within 51-48 but Guldin made it two-possession game connecting on one of two free throw with 6.8 seconds.

“I thought it was important for us, we obviously lost the last two games,” Behrens said. “Last Friday we played at Methacton (in the quarterfinals) which was really cool setting. Thought we played well for two-and-a-half quarters and then Methacton really just kind of took it to us. Kids were down about not being to go to Temple, we had to go to Lower Merion. I don’t think we played our best basketball at Lower Merion. 

“So I thought it was important tonight. I thought the positive of losing to Lower Merion ended up we get a home game here. So we knew that no matter what this would be the last home game for our seniors.”

After a Luke Yoder corner 3-pointer gave the Rams a 27-23 lead at halftime, Downingtown East cut the margin to one three times in the third – the last at 32-31 after James Basilii’s steal and layup.

But Yoder hit a jumper to make it 34-31 and then the Rams started to get out in transition – Fisher throwing down a dunk then adding another basket for a 38-31 advantage. A Connor Pleibel 3-pointer off a Guldin cross-court pass had Pennridge up 10.

“After watching film, we realized they didn’t get back great on defense and we are a huge team based off of transition,” Guldin said. “And we just wanted to exploit that as long as we could and it worked out a lot.”

Buckets from Colin Post and Fisher extended the lead to 45-41 before Owsik snapped the 13-0 run to make it a 12-point game going to the fourth.

“We thought we could wear them down just by getting in our transition game,” Behrens said. “We need to do a little bit better job of making sure we have a guy on the block to create the spacing but when we did I thought it benefited us.

“They weren’t going to push the ball up offensively, they were going to have to work for every single shot. They were going to play a half-court game, I wanted a 94-foot game.”

Owsik opened the final quarter with a corner three while two from George Bousum had East within 45-38. The Rams were still up nine at 49-40 after a Fisher bucket before King collected the next six to make it a three-point game.

Pennridge capped the first quarter with back-to-back 3-pointers from Pleibel and Guldin to lead 15-5. King answered with the first seven in the second quarter with two inside from Bousum making it 15-14.

An Owsik triple gave the Cougars a 23-22 edge before Fisher found a cutting Guldin for a bucket to put the Rams back up 24-23. Yoder’s three gave the home side a four-point lead at the break.