POCONO MOUNTAIN WEST
Coach: Rich Williams (7th season, 93-51).
Last season: 22-7, 13-3 EPC. Beat East Stroudsburg South 71-63, beat Parkland 61-52, lost to Allentown Central Catholic 61-54 in the EPC tournament. Beat Whitehall 69-60, lost to East Stroudsburg South 43-34 in the District 11 5A tournament. Beat Chichester 73-67, lost to Abington Heights 61-56 in the PIAA tournament.
Season opener: Friday, vs. Notre Dame-Green Pond, 8 p.m. in Jeff Dailey Memorial Tournament. EPC opener: Wednesday at
East Stroudsburg South. Nonleague games: Dec. 1-2, vs. Notre Dame-GP and either Roberto Clemente or Freedom in Jeff Dailey tournament; Dec. 20 vs. Scranton Prep; Dec. 28 vs. Executive Education; Dec. 29 vs. Samuel Fels of Philadelphia; Jan. 6 at James Monroe of New York City.
Non-division league games: Dec. 12 vs. Bethlehem Catholic; Dec. 15 at Parkland; Dec. 22 at Liberty; Jan. 4 vs. Northampton; Jan. 12 at Allentown Central Catholic; Jan. 19 vs. Nazareth. Players to watch: Devin Artis (5-10, Sr. G); KJ Coles (5-10,
Sr. G); Brady Behr (6-1, So. G); Jonathan Mateo (5-10 Jr. G); Adrian Brito (6-6, Jr. F).
Take note: Brito played on the Dominican 17U national team and played in the championship game against Puerto Rico in Belize. Williams believes he’s one of the most skilled players in the state in terms of shooting the ball well, passes it well and defends well for his size.“He does a lot of things really well and KJ Coles is as skilled and as talented as any kid we’ve ever had.” Both players are already receiving considerable college interest. … West led the EPC in scoring last yeat at 64.9 ppg and was third behind only Parkland and ACCHS in 3-pointers with 194. … The Panthers also made 70 percent of their free throws last year which was third in the league. Their 536 attempts at the line was tops in the league … TJ Murphy has rejoined the coaching staff as a varsity assistant. Murphy joins a staff featuring several former Pocono West players including Quindell Brice, Tyrel Dixon, Rasheed Walters and Antre Cole. Former East standout Jerusalem Strickland and ex-Pleasant Valley coach Ken Piontkowski and ex-East Stroudsburg South coach Mark Brown remain part of the staff.
Why the Panthers are Dandy Dozen material: While they lost their one all-league player to graduation in Julian Pagan, they have two players who are candidates for the first team this year in Brito and Coles. They also have a quality defender in Artis and a clutch shooter in Mateo. They also have an outstanding athlete in Behr who had a big football season as a receiver. It is a team that won 22 games last season, but has the hunger for more since they were denied league and district championships.
Final word: “We play in what should be a very competitive division and then we have some good cross-division games with teams like Parkland,
Liberty, Bethlehem Catholic and [Allentown] Central
Catholic and we have some great nonleague opponents like Executive and our opener at Notre Dame,” Williams said. “Most people would say our schedule is difficult, and it is difficult. But it’s exactly what we want if we’re going to get better.”