Unionville blasts W.C. East to reach Ches-Mont final
WEST CHESTER >> For a squad that’s struggled with slow starts all season, the Unionville boys were nearly perfect in the first half of Saturday’s Ches-Mont Basketball Semifinal against West Chester East at Hollinger Field House.
Locked in from tipoff, if Longhorns weren’t outrageously accurate from long distance, they were working for a bunch of high-percentage inside attempts. When the opening half onslaught concluded, Unionville had a 21-point lead and went on to cruise, 60-32, against a Vikings’ squad that looked more dazed than anything.
“The guys are staying in the moment and doing their jobs with maximum effort and unselfishness,” said ’Horns’ head coach Chris Cowles. “That is part of the foundation of this program and we did that tonight.”
It was an otherworldly performance, especially if you consider it came against an East squad that won this tournament the previous three years, and have qualified for the semifinals in each of the last five.
“We’ve been in the last three (Ches-Mont) Final Fours so we are used to being here,” Cowles said. “We go in with expectations that if we maximize our ability the result will take care of itself.”
The Ches-Mont American champs, Unionville improves to 20-3 and advances to Tuesday’s final at Hollinger to face Downingtown West, the Ches-Mont National titlists.
“One of our team principles is ‘max effort,’” said junior guard J.T. Anderson. “Everybody putting their body on the line is being unselfish, so diving on the floor is giving max effort. When we play like that we can be special.”
Against the 3-time defending champs Unionville seemed to get every loose ball, dominated the boards and rarely took a forced shot. The Vikings fall to 16-7 and will try to regroup for the start of the District 1 5A Tournament.
“We got smacked in the face and now we have to pick it up if we want to avoid going two games and done in the postseason,” said East head coach Tom Durant.
“We just didn’t make shots tonight — we couldn’t get comfortable. Now we have to circle the wagons because we have to get ready for the winner of Upper Dublin and (West Chester) Rustin.”
With an effective early inside-outside attack, the Longhorns reeled off an 11-2 burst to lead 17-8 after one period, and then things got even worse for the Vikings. Unionville got two 3-pointers each from Anderson and senior Robbie Logan in the second quarter, outscored the Vikings 19-7 and took a shocking 36-15 lead into the intermission.
Afterwards, Durant pointed out that his team’s last game was on Feb. 2nd, and the eight-day layoff proved detrimental.
“(Unionville) shot the lights out,” Durant said. “And I think we had too many days off. We just didn’t have it, and I could tell from the start.”
In the opening 16 minutes of action, the ’Horns buried their first seven 3-pointers and were 7-8 overall. That’s a shooting percentage of .875. And almost lost amid the scoring outburst was that the Longhorns were outstanding all evening on defensive.
“We kind of locked-in on (East’s) personnel,” Cowles explained. “The guys did a good job of that and that’s why we were effective.
“(East) beats people by outrebounding them, and we were outrebounding them. So I could tell pretty early that we were ready based on that.”
The Vikings deployed a three-quarter court trapping defense in the second half, but by the end of the third, the margin had ballooned to 30.
“We are all connected out there, we were ready to shoot the ball, and everyone was playing defense,” Anderson said. “And defense translates to offense. We just started hitting shots.
“I am not surprised at all.”
Anderson paced the Longhorns’ balanced attack with 13 points, Logan and Ryan Brown each added 12 and Nick Diehl came off the bench and chipped in 11.
“All week we talked about being ready and everybody doing their job,” Anderson said. “We did that today, and look what happened.”
East senior Jack Kushner scored 13 of his game-high 18 in the second half, but didn’t get much help from his teammates. He is now just two points from reaching the 1,000-point milestone in career scoring.
Overall, the Vikings did not connect from 3-point range and were 6-16 from the line. And other than Kushner and fellow senior Jack Gallagher, no Vikings player was able to register more than a single shot from the floor.
“Unionville had a good game plan,” Durant said. “They were playing off Jack Kushner to see if he could have a 3-pointer.
“Their kids came to play – they had a fight in them right from the start.”
Midway through the second half, the score was so lopsided a running clock was instituted.
“Our players know what to do, but they have to feel what they are supposed to do,” Cowles said.” And then they have to have faith that their teammates are going to do it.”
Unionville 60, West Chester East 32
West Chester East 8 7 7 10 — 32
Unionville 17 19 16 8 — 60
W.C. EAST – Sherlock 1 0-0 2; Spencer 1 0-0 2; Kushner 7 4-12 18; Gallagher 3 0-1 6; Cochran 1 2-3 4. Totals 13 6-16 32.
UNIONVILLE – Carson 2 0-0 4; Logan 5 0-0 12; Napolitano 1 0-0 3; Anderson 5 0-0 13; Brown 5 0-0 12; Kammeier 1 0-0 2; Diehl 5 1-2 11; Brenner 1 0-0 3. Totals 25 1-2 60.
Three-pointers: Logan 2, Anderson 3, Brown 2, Brenner.
