Scoring leaders heading into district tournament
The regular season and the league tournaments are history.
The next phase of the 2023-24 Lehigh Valley scholastic boys basketball season begins Friday night with the start of the District 11 tournament.
And it’s not surprising that many of the area’s top scorers will be in action in the upcoming tournament adding to their outstanding totals.
However, the top two are done for this season and need to wait until next December to add to their scoring achievements.
Here’s a look at our area’s “Fab 15” entering districts:
No. 1: Jacob Lewis, Lehigh Valley Christian Academy, 29.9 ppg:
The 6-foot, junior guard finished his junior season with some extraordinary performances. He had 31 against Valley Forge Baptist Academy and scored 40 against Lincoln Leadership Academy in a 96-48 loss. He ended his junior season with 1,513 career points. After going through a 4-18 season, he will look for a better senior season for his team.
No. 2: Jaen Chatman, East Stroudsburg North, 27.0 ppg:
Chatman has already been voted the Pocono Record’s player of the year. He finished the EPC regular season as the league’s leading scorer, tallying 27.1 points per game. He made 57 3-pointers and will enter his senior season with 1,244 career points and a shot at catching the late Arthur Perryman, who finished his career in 1994 with 1,735 as the program’s all-time leading scorer.
No. 3: Taemas Jones, Pocono Mountain East, 23.2 ppg:
Jones, a senior, and his Cardinals are one of five teams in the District 11 5A field and will play Bangor at 7:30 Friday night at Pleasant Valley. A win would would send the Cardinals against No. 1 seed and EPC North champ Pocono Mountain West. In 16 EPC league games, he averaged 22.6 points per game, third behind Chatman and Parkland’s Nick Coval. He made 26 3-pointers. He scored 19 in a 66-54 loss to Palmerton to close the regular season.
No. 4: Matt Machalik, Palmerton, 22.3 ppg:
The Lehigh University football commit has raised his level of play in the final games of his organized basketball career. He scored 45 against Palisades on Jan. 15 and has scored at least 20 points in 11 straight games including a spectacular 28-point effort against Notre Dame-Green Pond in the Colonial League championship. He will be in action Saturday afternoon at Allen when his Blue Bombers meet Panther Valley in a District 11 3A quarterfinal at 2:30 p.m. in the middle game of a tripleheader.
No. 5: Nick Coval, Parkland, 22.1 ppg:
One of the most anticipated moments of the upcoming District 11 6A tournament will be Coval becoming the seventh Lehigh Valley-area player to reach 2,000 points in his career. The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference champion Trojans will play either Northampton or Stroudsburg on Wednesday night in the 6A semifinals and Coval will enter that game needing six for 2,000.
No. 6: Bryceson Dobie, East Stroudsburg North, 21.5 ppg:
Dobie scored 35 in a late-season game against Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg. He was a second-team EPC all-star selection. He was fourth in the EPC regular season in scoring at 20.9 points per game and shot 75% from the foul line. The Timberwolves play Whitehall Tuesday in the District 11 Class 5A semifinals.
No. 7: Xavier Spears, Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg, 21.0 ppg:
Spears has 442 points this season and has made 53 3-pointers. The Spartans are the No. 1 seed in the District 11 Class A tournament and will play either Forest City Regional or Susquehanna Community in the semifinals Tuesday night. In a 77-72 loss late in the regular season, Spears scored 31 points and made five 3-pointers.
No. 8: Nathan Wilder, East Stroudsburg North, 19.5 ppg:
Wilder had 24 points against East Stroudsburg South and 28 against Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg. He finished the EPC regular season at 19.0 ppg. Last year, he averaged 16.9 ppg when the Timberwolves went 11-12. They have already topped that win total, going 12-10 through the regular season.
No. 9: Rylan Muniz, Executive, 19.1 ppg:
The senior sharpshooter recently joined his brother, Jevin, as a 1,000point scorer at Executive. He has had a strong senior season with 101 3-pointers, and finished the regular season with 18 against Wyoming Valley West and 24 against Williamsport. The Raptors are in a tough District 11 3A bracket with Colonial League champ Notre Dame-Green Pond, Colonial runner-up Palmerton and others, but remain favored to win a sixth consecutive title, fourth in a row at 3A.
No. 10: Will Barber, Emmaus, 19.0 ppg:
The Green Hornets senior and Saint Joseph’s lacrosse commit has 1,239 career points entering the district tournament. Emmaus, the No. 2 seed in 6A, will face either Liberty or Nazareth in Wednesday’s semifinals. Barber is coming off a season-low eight points against Parkland in the EPC title game.
Prior to that, he had 22 points against Whitehall and 19 against Pocono Mountain West in the EPC tournament.
No. 11: Jahrel Vigo, Allentown CCHS, 18.4 ppg:
Vigo was a first-team EPC all-star selection. He had a pair of eightpoint games late in the regular season, but rose up for 24 against Allen and had 17 against Parkland. In the EPC regular season, he averaged 17.8 points per game. He has 916 career points and could reach 1,000 if the Vikings can reach the state tournament. They open District 11 4A play Friday night at Allen, taking on Tamaqua in a quarterfinal game.
No. 12: Jackson Reid, Moravian Academy, 17.8 ppg:
Reid was the second-leading scorer in the Colonial League. He had 31 early in the season against Bangor and 29 in a late-season game against Palisades. He was a Colonial League Coaches Association honorable mention selection. He will play baseball for the Lions this spring.
No. 13: Brayden Hosier, Palmerton, 17.7 ppg:
Hosier scored 35 in a Jan. 31 game against Southern Lehigh and had 30 against Notre Dame-Green Pond in the regular season. He has 58 3-pointers this season but didn’t have any treys in two league tournament games. He has 1,300 career points and can add to that total in the upcoming District 11 3A tournament. The Blue Bombers play Panther Valley at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Allen in the 3A quarterfinals. With a win, the Blue Bombers will likely get another meeting with Notre Dame in the semifinals.
No. 14: Connor Simms, Northern Lehigh, 17.54 ppg:
Simms was a Colonial League Coaches Association honorable mention all-star. He had 29 against Moravian Academy, 26 against Palisades and 24 against Southern Lehigh. He made six 3-pointers in a 21-point performance against Northwestern Lehigh. On a team that featured just one senior this winter, Simms offers the most hope for a better season ahead in 2024-25.
No. 15: Adrian Brito, Pocono Mountain West, 17.46 ppg:
Brito had 28, 31 and 37 points in consecutive games late in the regular season, but his value can’t be measured solely in the scoring column since he has a top rebounder, defender and passer. He was a first-team all-EPC selection. After being held to 12 points by Emmaus in the EPC semis, look for him to come back strong in the District 11 5A tournament. The Panthers could be headed for a semifinal meeting with Pocono Mountain East and Brito has scored a combined 55 points in two previous wins over East.