Richardson’s warm spell ices chilly game as East topples Penncrest

WEST NORRITON — The locker room of a team that scored just eight points in the first half of a boys high school basketball game isn’t going to rival Disney World as the happiest place on earth.

But for West Chester East Wednesday evening at Norristown Area High School, it also wasn’t the bleakest of places.

“At halftime, my coach was just like, ‘take it one possession at a time. Don’t rush,’” East guard Tym Richardson said. “Because in the beginning, we were rushing, we weren’t playing our game. We started playing as a team, started attacking and that’s what got us the lead.”

No one was as well-positioned as Richardson to enact change once the Vikings left the locker room. In a game where offense was in desperately short supply (see as evidence 33 combined turnovers against 25 made field goals), Richardson knew that a little would go a long way.

Richardson scored eight points in the third quarter, personally shifting the momentum to help top-seeded East dethrone the two-time reigning District 1 Class 5A champion Penncrest, 40-32.

The Vikings will head to Temple Saturday afternoon at 2 to take on No. 6 Sun Valley, a 68-49 winner over Pottsgrove in the other semi. Penncrest (20-7) drops to the third-place game against the Falcons Friday.

It’s hard to overstate to what degree the defenses — and the rims, and turnovers, and just about every other factor — overpowered point production. But Richardson forced the matter with his aggressiveness. On a day where jump shots didn’t seem to fall and a 10-point quarter (for a player, not a team) constituted an offensive bonanza, Richardson’s eight points in the third tipped the scales. It powered a 17-3 edge for the Vikings into the fourth quarter, all for a team that had scored just four points in each of the opening two periods.

“I think it was a huge momentum swing for them when they came out,” Penncrest guard Isaiah Rice said. “You hold a high school varsity team to eight points and then they come out in the second half and they score the first three of four buckets, it seems like you’re being barraged, but when in reality it was only a few points. I think it was a huge momentum swing for us that we kind of never got the momentum back going our way.”

“It’s really just drive and heart,” said Richardson, who scored 11 points. “We’re not going to lose to come this far for no reason, so it’s drive and heart, that dog in us.”

Andrew Carr, conclusively large. 27-20 East. 4:22 left. pic.twitter.com/9LIY2zMLVX

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) February 28, 2019

Richardson was backed by 6-9 forward Andrew Carr, who again lived up to the height and hype. He scored 15 of his game-high 19 points in the fourth, aided by a 9-for-9 performance at the free-throw line from the soft-handed big man. He added 10 rebounds, a department in which the Vikings held a 32-20 edge, and muted Penncrest’s Matt Arbogast to just one point and one field-goal attempt.

PHOTO GALLERY: Penncrest vs. West Chester East

Carr is the linchpin in the Vikings’ 1-3-1 zone defense deployed by former Penncrest coach and current Penncrest teacher Tom Durant, with Carr up top to harass ball-handlers with his length and surprising agility. Against a Penncrest team that operates so adeptly around the free-throw line, the length of Carr and East’s other rangy players closed all lanes to the Lions.

“We tried to attack what we called the gray area, which is the area behind the three in the 1-3-1, but when they have 6-9 up front and 6-7 in the middle, it kind of makes it a little tough for us to get up shots where we like to get shots,” Rice said. “I thought we did a good job in the first half, swinging the ball and getting behind them, but the second half, we kind of went cold from the field. We didn’t make plays, missed a lot of shots we should’ve made, and they made the plays.”

Isaiah Rice hits Malcolm Williams. Glimmers of basketball!!
Half: Penncrest 15, East 8 pic.twitter.com/j5gv07ukxP

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) February 28, 2019

That led to a lot of jump-shooting, but not much making. The Lions were 1-for-17 from 3-point range, Marquis Tomlin (five points, four assists) owning the make. Penncrest shot 12-for-36 (33.3 percent) from the field. Malcolm Williams led the way with 12 points, deprived of his usual mid-range offense. Rice tossed in 11 points.

East was just 1-for-12 beyond the arc and didn’t crack 40 percent from the field (13-for-38). Carr entered the fourth quarter with just four points, and point guard Gibby Trowery was held to three points on 1-for-9 shooting. All of those are positives from Penncrest’s point of view.

“I think we did a pretty good job,” Rice said. “We did a good job containing Carr, containing Tym. I think we stuck to our game plan and did a pretty good job executing. I think it was the offensive end that failed us tonight.”

Either East or Sun Valley will be the first District 1 Class 5A champion not named Penncrest, the Lions claiming both titles since the PIAA shuffled to six classes for the 2016-17 season. This first districts loss stings, but isn’t the end of the road.

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and go back to work,” Rice said. “The season’s not over, there’s still work to be done and things that can be accomplished. We just get back at it tomorrow in practice.”

The work’s not done for East, either, though that declaration from Richardson was in a more joyful tone.

“It feels so great,” he said. “I feel like we’re all setting the bar for everybody, for the next players above and below. And it feels really great.”