Liberty, Parkland advance
Machalik reaches 1,000 in Palmerton victory
Parkland started fast and Liberty finished strong to post District 11 Class 6A quarterfinal-round victories Saturday night at Easton Area Middle School.
The No. 3 seeded Trojans made five 3-pointers and broke open a 19-7 lead in the first quarter and never trailed in a 60-47 victory over No. 6 Northampton.
Eastern Pennsylvania Conference MVP Nick Coval scored 27 points and was stellar as usual at the foul line by making 14 of 15 attempts to go with three 3-pointers.
Coval has made 142 of 156 free throws this season, 91%. Joey Gerbasio added 10 points for the Trojans, who bounced back from an EPC semifinal loss to Pocono Mountain West and improved to 16-9.
The defending 6A champions beat Northampton for the third time this season and will play Freedom at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Freedom in the semifinals.
That game will precede a matchup between No. 1 seed Emmaus and Liberty. The Hurricanes advanced with their first postseason win under third-year coach Nigel Long.
Liberty beat Allen 52-47 behind a balanced effort from its young stars. Sophomore Dywane Chess Jr. led the way with 17 points, while freshmen Blake Hargrove and Jake Puksyzn scored 16 and 11 respectively.
Most impressive was that the Hurricanes (15-9) made 12 of 15 foul shots in the fourth quarter.
Hurricanes warning
Liberty snapped a six-game losing streak in districts and got its first tournament win at the 6A level and first in District 11 play since a 65-51 Class 4A quarterfinal round win over Nazareth in 2016.
It was the second time this season the Hurricanes beat the Canaries. They also beat Allen 54-41 Dec. 27 in the Canaries’ holiday tournament, but this one was more of a challenge for Liberty.
“I’m proud of our guys because we knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Long said. “Allen’s well-coached.
Coach Braswell is one of the best coaches around and he’s a dear friend of mine. We knew they would be ready. They run great stuff and Darius Brant is one of the best players in this league and we knew their pressure would cause some problems.”
After getting down 24-15 at halftime, the Canaries pressed and caused turnovers that led to transition baskets for Allen in the third period. The No. 5 seed got all the way back to within 30-28 on a Darrell Monoe layup with 3:07 left in the third.
But Hargrove and Chess answered with 3s to give Liberty a 36-31 advantage after three quarters and the Hurricanes were able to hold thanks to six points apiece by Hargrove and Pukszyn in the final stanza.
Pukszyn had four steals and two assists and Chess had three steals to go with six rebounds. Axcel Kamanga had seven rebounds, three at the offensive end as Liberty was able to maintain valuable possessions even after missing initial shots.
“Our guys hung in there and when we needed to make big plays, we did,” Long said. “We made big shots at the end of quarters and we made our free throws. We also had 12 steals and Dywane and Axcel did an unbelievable job on the glass giving us second possessions through their effort. In the playoffs, it’s all about possessions.”
Emmaus beat Liberty 60-39 Feb. 10 in an EPC quarterfinal played at the Green Hornets’ nest. The Hurricanes expect a much better effort this time.
“Every loss is a lesson and it was a great opportunity to be in that environment and now we get to play them again,” Long said.
Against Allen, Hargrove said poise was the key and the young Hurricanes, who have just three seniors on the roster, will look for the same formula against Emmaus.
“Our coach talked to us playing like we’re water and stay calm,” Hargrove said. “We talked about rebounding and defense and rebounding was a key to winning this game. I feel like I can handle the pressure as a freshman if my teammates have trust in me.”
It was the second year in a row Allen lost a quarterfinal-round heartbreaker. The Canaries fell to Northampton 49-47 in a game decided at the buzzer last year at Easton.
Brant and Monroe led Allen with 19 and 15 points, respectively. Adrian Figueroa, who was the team’s second-leading scorer with 9.9 points per game, was ineligible for the postseason due to the PIAA transfer rule. Figueroa, who played in all 22 of the Canaries’ regular-season games, spent last year at Executive Education before returning to Allen where his career began.
Parkland returns to its sweet spot
The Trojans were happy to be back at Easton Area Middle School for the quarterfinals and likely equally pleased that the semifinals, and, probably, the finals will be there as well.
Last season Parkland won three district games by an average of 25.7 points per game and beat Easton at the same venue 66-44 earlier this season.
“We like it here,” Trojans coach Andy Stephens said. “says we like Easton.”] … It has been a good place for us.”
Parkland beat Northampton, one of six EPC West Division teams to qualify for the tournament, for the third time. The Konkrete Kids outscored the Trojans 30-27 in the second half, but the outcome was never in doubt after Parkland’s initial burst.
“We talked about getting off to a good start and we shot the ball well early and Nick did a good job of distributing the ball,” Stephen said. “We knew in the second half they wouldn’t give up and they would try to muck it up and trap us and press and try to force turnovers. Minus three or four plays, I thought we handled it pretty well.”
Parkland had assists on 15 of its 16 field, goals, six by Coval who was 5-for-8 from the field and 3-for-3 from 3-point range. As a team, the Trojans were 16-for-32 shooting and 8-for-16 from the 3-point arc. They also had just six turnovers.
“Obviously it’s been a long time since we played and we didn’t scrimmage anybody because our white team, which is like our second team, pushes us every day in practice,” Coval said. “We were prepared. We were hungry. It was a long time, so it was nice to come out and play well.”
Coval quoted his father, Scott, the head coach of the DeSales University men’s basketball team, in saying “it’s not who we play, but how we play. That was a big emphasis. We had to bring our game and if we do we’re going to be successful.”
That’ll be the same approach against Freedom in the semis.
“We haven’t played them this season and I think our kids will like seeing somebody different,” Stephens said. “But they have a lot of talent. We played them in the summer and they’re a really good team. We’ll prepare and have good practices and see what happens.”
Northampton, meanwhile, closed out a 10-13 season after losing 90% of its scoring from a team that finished third in the district and reached the 6A quarterfinals last March. First-year coach Matt Scholl said his team had to wait for all of the power rankings numbers to be calculated before knowing they were in the 6A field, but was happy his squad got the experience.
“To get those extra practices and a game like this in front of a great crowd was important for our program,” Scholl said. “The first seven or eight minutes of this game were like the first two times we played them. We had 15 practices to say we need to start better, but it’s one thing to say and another thing to step out here and do it. It’s a credit to Parkland. They’re one of the elite programs in the area. That’s the bar we want to aim for. We’ve consistently won a lot of games, but there’s another step we want to take and that’s to get to Parkland’s level.”
Palmerton, Saucon advance in 3A
Two of the Colonial League’s best teams advanced to the 3A semifinals with impressive quarterfinal wins Saturday. Palmerton junior Matt Machalik hit the 1,000-point mark in the Blue Bombers’ 72-50 win over Panther Valley at Whitehall. At Catasauqua, Saucon Valley got 12 points from sophomore Jack Robertson and 11 from senior Jacob Albert in a 63-34 rout of Mast Charter from District One.
Brayden Hosier, another Palmerton junior, scored a careerhigh 32 points in the win over Panther Valley as the Blue Bombers improved to 19-6.
Both teams will play in Wednesday’s semis against teams that had quarterfinal-round byes. The fourth-seeded Blue Bombers will face No. 1 seed and defending champ Executive Education (18-4) at 7:30 p.m. at Northampton after No. 3 Saucon Valley (20-6) gets a rematch of the Colonial League title game against No. 2 Notre Dame-Green Pond (21-3) at 6. The Crusaders beat the Panthers 45-42 Feb. 17 in the Colonial finals.
SAUCON VALLEY 63, MAST CHARTER 34
Mast Charter 13– 4– 8– 9— 34
Saucon Valley 16– 11– 19– 17— 63
Mast CHARTER (34)
Neilchi 01-21, Grimaldi 22-46, Doreens 20-05, Spivey 02-42, Hondras 20-04, McGettison 24-6