Even in defeat, Downingtown East has nothing to hang heads about

PHILADELPHIA >> Watching Perikomen Valley celebrate with the District 1 Class AAAA championship trophy was enough for Downingtown East to bare.
As the Cougars were handed their second-place medals, for a brief instant all the hard work each of the 13 players put into the past three weeks (some for the past three years) seemed empty.
Downingtown East never led in this championship game and trailed by double-digits for most of the contest. Even with the 56-41 loss to Perkiomen Valley, the Cougars deserved to play for a title.
The feeling may not sink in right away, but when this group of players look back at their run through the district tournament, the hard work to get to Temple University paid off.
“Even though we didn’t win, we still made it farther than last year which was our goal,” said Paige Warfel, who finished with 16 points and eight rebounds. “I’m very proud of myself, this team and everyone involved. We have nothing to hang our heads about.”
On January 12, Downingtown East was on the outside looking in of the Ches-Mont playoffs and a high seed in the district playoffs with a 9-5 record after a 57-55 upset loss to West Chester Henderson. Since that game, the Cougars (21-8) turned their season around winning 12 of their next 14 games including a memorable run through the district tournament as a No. 12 seed to get to the championship game.
Downingtown East handled No. 21 Harriton, held on to beat No. 28 Central Bucks South, rallied to defeat No. 13 Neshaminy and led from the opening tip onward in a win over No. 8 Central Bucks South to advance to the final.
Then, the Cougars ran into a buzzsaw in Perkiomen Valley, a team they had a chance to defeat in the regular season. The Vikings jumped out to an early 16-2 lead and didn’t let East comeback in this one behind KT Armstrong’s 24 points and a 6-0 run by Hanan Richmond late to end the Cougars’ championship dreams for good.
East wasn’t outplayed nor afraid of the big moment. The Cougars have risen to the occasion plenty of times with the senior class of Warfel, Aryah Aungst, Lindsay Kent, Laura Ochsner and Kate Crum.
If two Aungst 3-pointers fall in the first four minutes instead of bouncing out of the rim, East might have witnessed that “cherry-on-top” ending Kent wanted to cap off a memorable senior season.
“Once we tightened up, we couldn’t get that ball to go through the rim,” said Downingtown East head coach Tom Schurtz. “In a game like this, you have to find that one shot to get you relaxed and we just couldn’t get that to go down.”
Losing in the district championship game was another heartbreaker East has suffered over the past few seasons. The Cougars have fallen in the Ches-Mont championship game in each of the last three years along with Friday’s district title defeat.
Those losses don’t compute to all East and its seniors have accomplished over the past three seasons. Teams have to win a lot of big games to even get the opportunity to play in a championship game. 97 Ches-Mont teams have tried and failed to get to the district title game since 2010, but only one had the ability to reach the pinnacle of District 1 basketball.
The 2015-2016 Downingtown East Cougars will be remembered in Lionville for a long time with their hard work, grit, determination and bringing championship basketball back to the Ches-Mont.
Even though the Cougars couldn’t hoist the championship trophy, they still have created plenty of memories to reflect on 10 to 20 years from now.
“I’m so proud of the effort to even get to this game,” Schurtz said. “We play each moment, each series, each 10-second interval all the way out. You put yourself in this position and hope the ball ounces your way.”
“It was such an accomplishment to even make it here,” Warfel said. “We have something to hold our heads high about. This was an absolutely amazing experience.”