Pennridge’s defense sets tone in win over Perkiomen Valley
EAST ROCKHILL >> Less than 24 hours after a draining loss and up against a difficult offense to guard, the Pennridge boys basketball team had a test waiting Saturday.
Good teams find ways to pass those kinds of test and the Rams like to think they’re a good team so they weren’t in a rush to lose a second straight game. The defense did its job and the offense picked back up after an off-night as Pennridge got back on the winning path against a shorthanded but always tough Perkiomen Valley team.
A solid two-way effort propelled the Rams to a 55-37 win over the Vikings Saturday afternoon.
“Our defense has been pretty strong all year but we had a tough game last night with CB West and they played extremely well against us,” Rams coach Dean Behrens said. “It was a physical game down there and we had to turn around and play well here. Perk Valley is a tough team to play.”
The Vikings were without Kam Parks, who is recovering from a facial injury and his absence was certainly felt. At the same time, PV isn’t a one-man show and its offense is built to make the opposing defense work, work and work until it finally relents.
Movement makes Perk Valley’s offense go, with a bevy of screeners, cutters and guys running around off the ball leading to open, in-rhythm shots and the Rams knew they had to work together to counter it. Colin Post drew the tough task of shadowing Tyler Lapetina but the junior noted it wasn’t just him doing the work.
“I knew my teammates would be in help, so it made it easier for me to follow him around,” Post said. “We know if we have energy on the defensive end, we can beat anyone.”
“Every possession you have to talk and that comes down to trust,” Rams guard Christian Guldin said. “When you have a guy coming up on someone’s back, you have to yell ‘screen’ and help them out. It’s something we do a lot in practice and these games are the benefit.”
Trent Fisher, who led Pennridge (13-4, 7-1 SOL Continental) with 16 points, did a good job as the backline deterrent on Saturday but Behrens noted they don’t want to lean to the senior to erase every mistake. Pennridge’s defense, which limited PV to four points in the first quarter, also helped fuel the offense.
Each stop, even if it came after 30 seconds of chasing Vikings players around, gave the Rams a chance to push and Guldin said they wanted every transition opportunity they could get. They found Fisher early and once the big man established himself inside, he started finding teammates outside for open looks.
“We knew in transition, because we do it every day in practice, get a guy on the block and have a trailer,” Fisher said. “When I was in the post, they were doubling down right away so I wanted to find the open guy but they were only leaving one guy for Conner (Pleibel) or Post and we have enough size we’re confident we can finish or find the open man.”
PV coach Mike Poysden felt the difference in the game was the transition defense.
“We’re trying to grind for a shot, grind for a shot and it doesn’t go in, well, then we’re back on defense,” Poysden said. “They’re a really solid team and the season and mindset we’re in, we wanted to go play the best available. We had some opportunities well early, guarded well and stuck to the plan but the transition defense killed us.”
The Vikings (8-12, 5-9 PAC/1-8 PAC Liberty) are a relatively young team and are still figuring out the nuances of the game like when it’s time to make the defense work and when it’s time to make a play or what it means to get back in transition opposed to get back in transition ready to guard.
Pennridge led 25-13 at the half, but expected a run to come. It arrived early in the third, with Lapetina able to shake loose a couple times to drain a three and draw an and-one to get within six points.
“I liked a lot of the shots we took, they didn’t fall,” Poysden said. “That’s part of a young team is figuring out how to be confident, but we’ll get there.”
Fisher helped settle his guys first by hitting a three from the top of the arc, then finding Pleibel in the corner for threes on back-to-back possessions as the Rams went ahead 38-23.
“We came to Earth, focused on getting the ball into the post, cover our basics and as we got a couple easy baskets, the stops came,” Guldin said.
“We slowed it down real quick and came back to what we had been doing,” Fisher said. “We found the open man and from there kept it going by playing great defense and not letting up easy baskets.”
Despite the setback to West, the Rams are still in control of the SOL Continental title race and Saturday’s rebound win put them back in the right mindset for another week of league contests.
“We put (Friday’s) game behind us and just started to look forward,” Post said.
PENNRIDGE 55, PERKIOMEN VALLEY 37
PENNRIDGE 11 14 16 14 – 55
PERKIOMEN VALLEY 4 4 10 14 – 37
Pennridge: Connor Pleibel 3 0-0 8, Luke Yoder 2 0-0 4, Christian Guldin 2 4-4 12, Colin Post 2 3-6 7, Trent Fisher 7 1-2 16, Anthony Phillips 1 1-2 3, Colin Monahan 2 0-1 4. Justin Nicholas 0 1-2 1. Totals: 21 8-15 55.
Perkiomen Valley: Aidan Quinn 2 0-0 4, Ethan Kohler 1 0-0 2, Michael Dougherty 0 2-2 2, Tyler Lapetina 5 1-1 12, Aidan Gansz 2 0-0 4, Dawson Debebe 2 0-1 5, Dom Miceli 2 1-1 5, Jousha Pelzer 1 0-0 3. Totals: 15 4-5 37.
3-pointers: P – Pleibel 2, Guldin 2, Fisher; PV – Lapetina, Debebe, Pelzer.
