Under Behrens, Pennridge reached new heights

Pennridge boys’ basketball coach Dean Behrens didn’t even have his whole team together yet and he was already telling them to hop on the bandwagon.

Coming off a 15-win season with a lot of talent and experience back, Behrens had reason to be excited. Then the 17th-year head coach took his not-yet-whole team to a couple of preseason shootouts and it thrived, so his excitement began to build.

But what happened during the season, even he couldn’t have expected all of that.

Under Behrens, the Rams took off, and made history with their first ever appearance in the PIAA tournament and even won their first game. After guiding the program to new heights, Behrens has been picked as The Reporter/Montgomery Media boys basketball Coach of the Year.

“I just could see this team getting better and really buying in,’ Behrens said. “I felt like with the guys playing in the open gyms and fall shootouts and you add a Joe Unangst in, we could feel pretty good about ourselves. I guess it was the end of October where I made the statement to jump on because it was going to be a fun ride.

“Now, I never imagined getting to the point that we did.’

Basketball, especially at the high school level, is a guard’s game. Pennridge had three special ones returning in seniors Zack Muredda and Joe Molettiere and junior Danny Long. The Rams weren’t going to be very big, but they brought a lot of heart to the floor every night.

Bolstered by hard-nosed senior Joe Unangst, junior Stephen Lowry and sophomore Kyle Yoder, Pennridge set an expectation to win the SOL Continental crown. The trio of guards could provide the scoring punch, as Muredda (15 ppg), Molettiere (16 ppg) and Long (17 ppg) combined for an average of 48 points per night, so it was up to the defense to do the rest.

The Rams couldn’t control how big they weren’t or how big other teams were, but they could control how much they wanted the ball. Being big isn’t everything, and the Rams went after the ball hard.

“We figured a couple years prior that we just weren’t going to be a big team for the next few years,’ Behrens said. “We built our offense to get more transition and our kids bought into it, they liked to play uptempo. We had to improve in our halfcourt sets and obviously in defensive rebounding. If we weren’t going to improve defensively in rebounding we were going to be in trouble.’

Like they played offense and scored as a group, they hit the glass as a group. Molettiere played bigger than his 6-foot-2, jumping out of his shoes for rebounds.

Yet, even as the wins came and the Rams went a sterling 13-1 in the division, respect was slow to follow. Their conference record was tied with Plymouth-Whitemarsh for second best behind Abington’s 14-0 in all of the SOL. In the division, the Rams had everyone’s respect, and most coaches in the league knew what the Rams could do, but they seemed an afterthought outside.

Yet, it didn’t stop Pennridge from claiming the No. 3 seed in the District 1 Class AAAA bracket but even then, respect didn’t come right away. So the Rams did what they did all season and kept winning. They beat Spring-Ford then knocked off a talented Coatesville team to secure the program’s first state bid.

Pennridge lost to Abington in the third round, but they led the Galloping Ghosts late.

“I fed that a little bit too, I kept reading that we didn’t play a great schedule and things like that,’ Behrens said. “Our league is pretty solid and if you have a weakness, you’re going to get exposed. When we beat Coatesville and gave Abington everything they could handle, people started to say this team’s not that bad and then we beat Methacton and Lower Merion. Let’s face it, Lower Merion, Coatesville and Abington are power teams in the district.’

A byproduct of the Rams’ success was the impact in their building. Pennridge’s gym became a viper pit, loud, hostile and absolutely no fun for opponents to play in. The student body always turned out, but they started coming in droves as the rest of the community joined in the support.

“One thing you find out as a coach is that your kids really like to play in front of that,’ Behrens said. “They like the bright lights, they don’t mind playing in front of a big crowd. Where I think it helped us is we didn’t have to travel anywhere. When we beat Methacton on the road after we lost to Abington, it meant we were playing a home game. That to me was great.’

The win over Methacton, a triple overtime thriller, summed up Pennridge. The Rams, up against the No. 2 seed in the district, were at a decided size advantage in a road playback round for state seeding. They remained relentless, taking every shot Methacton threw at them, eventually wearing the Warriors out and dominating the final overtime period.

As the fifth place team out of District 1, the Rams drew Reading in the first round of states, playing the game at Wilson, practically in Reading’s backyard. Pennridge took an early lead then trailed by six later in the fourth quarter.

Somehow, some way, the Rams scored the last eight, capturing what Behrens called the greatest win in Pennridge history.

“It was a crowd of what they said was 4,200 people and 4,000 of them wanted us to lose,’ Behrens said. “What a great experience. It was probably the best game of the first round. We warming up, I always wanted to look at our guys because if I looked at the other guys it’d be like ‘ Geez, look at the size of some of these guys.”

Lowry came down with a blood disorder late in the season and Muredda was injured early in the team’s second round state game, spelling the end of the Rams’ ride. While Muredda, Molettiere and Unangst are moving on, the remaining Rams grew plenty this year, so Behrens will have another strong group next year.

He passed plenty of credit for it onto his assistants for their work with the guards and bigs and of course, to the guys who made it all possible.

“We were always in it,’ Behrens said. “We had a lot of mental toughness. People take that for granted but we weren’t always winning every game, we got down and we had enough mental toughness to come back. It’s because we had good players and good assistant coaches. Everyone was on the same page, it was a fun group.’