Pottstown opens with win over UP
Senior Smallwood seals Trojans’ 43-38 victory over Upper Perkiomen
POTTSTOWN » He made a name for himself this fall as the star runner for the Pottstown boys cross country squad.
This winter, Darius Smallwood is merging his skills in distance running — the ability to run a long stretch on often-uneven terrain at a steady pace — with those found on the basketball court. Friday evening at Pottstown High’s Strom Gymnasium, Smallwood showed his skills in finishing big after moving steady.
In helping the Trojans to a season-opening 43-38 victory over Upper Perkiomen, Smallwood sewed up the win in this Pioneer Athletic Conference Frontier Division pairing at the foul line. The senior forward made three of six free throws inside the game’s final minute to put the game — Pottstown had a tenuous 4038 lead with less than 1:20 remaining — out of the Indians’ reach. Ironically, Smallwood doesn’t consider that aspect of his game a slam-dunk, so to speak.
“Free throws aren’t my strength,” he admitted. “I missed it (a one-and-one) earlier, so I wanted to get it to redeem myself.”
That capper to a closing run of 15 unanswered points enabled Pottstown to overcome UP’s 38-28 advantage after Nick Aron (10 points) laid up a stolen ball and, drawing a foul, sank a free throw with 4:58 left in the game. The Tribe found itself unable to pad that spread down the stretch, getting no closer than Aron going to the line around the two-minute mark but unable to connect on a one-and-one.
“We let it slip and got into foul trouble,” UP head coach
Brandon Hibbler said, a reference to his team’s 23 infractions and three players whistled a combined 14 times. “When you’re playing only seven and you’re a starter down, you can’t do that.”
Smallwood, finishing as Pottstown’s offensive leader with 12 points, got the stretch run going by making a layup before Terryce Phillips got the first of his five fourth-quarter points off a second-shot basket. A Corey Cottman threepoint play and basket by Joneil Oister got the deficit down to a single point (38-37) before Phil