Perkiomen Valley tops Cheltenham to clinch spot in states

GRATERFORD >> After a regular season spent battling Suburban One foes like Abington, Pennridge, and Plymouth-Whitemarsh, no one could say Cheltenham wasn’t battle-tested as a team.

They just hadn’t battled anything quite like the Perkiomen Valley defense.

Tyler Strechay’s last basket of the night broke a 34-all tie with 2:03 to play and the Vikings defense rose to the occasion late as eighth-seeded Perkiomen Valley topped No. 9 Cheltenham, 43-36, in a District 1 Class 6A tournament Tuesday night slugfest.

The win sends the 22-7 Vikings into a district quarterfinal showdown Friday with top-seeded and two-time defending District 1 champions Abington, victorious over Downingtown West Tuesday night. Looking at the big picture, it sends the Vikings back into the PIAA Class 6A state tournament for the second time in three years.

“It’s only the third team in our school’s history to make it into states,” said head coach Mike Poysden, “but we’re not even talking about that yet. We’ve got some big games between now and then.”

“[Abington] will be a great challenge,” said Strechay, who led the way with 20 points. “Those are the opportunities you play for — I can’t wait.”

As for the Panthers (17-8), the road to states now takes them through ‘playbacks’, a separate tournament in which Tuesday night’s eight second-round losers battle in single elimination format for the ninth and tenth spots allocated to District 1 in the PIAA Class 6A state tournament. Essentially, it’s a pair of four-team playoffs, with each winner advancing into states.

Cheltenham’s journey will begin Friday night at home, when they host 17th-seeded Downingtown West, who fell to Abington on Tuesday.

“I don’t know whether it’s that we hadn’t seen [Perkiomen Valley’s style] before, we just didn’t get into our rhythm early enough,” said Cheltenham coach Patrick Fleury. “We play that tough schedule to prepare for games like these — hopefully, going forward, we’ll get it going earlier.”

Indeed, the Panthers were held 25 points below their season scoring average, as the suffocating PV defense dominated the first three quarters. Cheltenham guard Zahree Harrison keyed the fourth-quarter comeback and a steal and dunk by Jaelen McGlone tied the game with 2:23 to go — the closest the Panthers had been since the first quarter.

But Strechay and Kam Parks followed with jumpers to give PV back a four-point lead, then Parks, AJ Hansen and Zach Krause iced the game at the foul line.

“This is what we do, this is the goal,” confirmed Poysden. “How often can we hold our opponents to single-digit quarters? Because we’re convinced that in the flow of a quarter, we can put up at least 10 points.

“So a game that goes 10-8, 10-8 … that’s our comfort zone.”

Ultimately, PV only held Cheltenham in single digits once in four quarters Tuesday night. But considering they held them to a mere two points that stanza, Poysden allowed some leeway.

A slow-moving start yielded an early Cheltenham timeout, but it was PV who’d come out a different team, embarking on a 10-0 run that lasted the balance of the first quarter. Strechay led the way, canning an NBA-range 3 and drawing a charge from Cheltenham’s do-it-all point guard Harrison. After the slow start, the Vikings had a double-digit lead though the first quarter.

McGlone and Sean Emfinger would convert Harrison passes into deep 3s to bring Cheltenham closer early in the second quarter. The problem was, each Panthers basket meant the ball went back to Perkiomen Valley, which usually meant at least another 30, 40 seconds of hard work on defense for Cheltenham. Strechay stayed hot throughout the quarter, and a late PV timeout turned into a 90-second possession that ended with another deep 3 from the PAC scoring leader, sending the hosts to the half with a 10-point lead.

Cheltenham turned things around with an 8-0 run midway through the third quarter, succeeding for the first time in speeding up the game with an effective 3/4 court trap that forced PV into a few careless passes. Another end-of-quarter possession lasted the final 1:20 of the third, with a similar outcome — an AJ Hansen jumper to beat the buzzer and give PV a six-point lead heading to the final quarter.

“I’m sure it is frustrating to play defense that long (and concede a basket),” admitted Poysden.

With the two-time champions looming, can the Vikings keep it going?

“We always talk about having on nights, off nights — but you can always rely on defense,” said Poysden. “Study the scouting reports, prepare, rebound well. We’re not built to race to 80-90 points in a game. This is our style — we’re scrappy.”