On the double
Methacton repeats as PAC champs
ROYERSFORD >> The Methacton boys basketball team entered the season as the reigning Pioneer Athletic Conference champion, the favorite to win it again and they got to believing their own hype.
All that got them was a 6-5 record.
“We knew we had that talent to score with anyone ... In the beginning of the year, we were trying to outscore teams. And we were 6-5,” junior Jeff Woodward said. “We knew we had to make a run and it had to start with our defense. Our defense has picked up so much.”
That commitment was on full display Thursday night as the Warriors defense was equal to their offense as they handled Perkiomen Valley in the Pioneer Athletic Conference boys basketball championship game, 67-43, to claim a second straight league title.
Methacton (20-5) rattled off its 14th straight victory in dominant fashion and became the first PAC boys team to win back-to-back titles since Spring-Ford in 1999-2000. Lansdale Catholic (1997-98) and the eight straight of Pottstown from 1988-95 were the only other repeat champions.
“It’s crazy,” Woodward said, “not just for this team and this group of guys, but the school to have a team that everybody loves and comes out to support.”
The Warriors had four players in double figures, Woodward and senior David Duda had matching 15-point games while junior guards Brett Eberly and Erik Timko had 12 and 11, respectively.
Timko, as well as fellow junior Owen Kropp, may have been receiving the biggest praise of anyone postgame. They held PAC leading scorer Tyler Strechay to just nine points, well below his season average.
“Erik and Owen, they did a spectacular job on Strech,” Eberly said. “They held him to 9 points. That’s what our goal was, to not let him get the ball. They did a spectacular job and held their ground and that got us into the game. We were taking their best player out.”
Meanwhile, 6-9 center Woodward was dominant in the paint and had six blocks and 10 rebounds, a margin Methacton owned 36-22. Methacton held PV to 17for-58 shooting (29 percent) from the floor.
“Our defense has picked up so much, not only on the perimeter, but I feel like I’m playing better on the defensive end,” Woodward said. “Beginning of the year, I was not playing up to the level I know I can play. But here in the biggest moment of the year so far, I tried to step up and play the best defense I could.
With that sort of play on defense, the Warriors didn’t need to be great offensively, but they were, shooting 25for-46 (54 percent).
After winning last year’s championship over SpringFord and so much of that core returning, the big-game atmosphere in Royersford Thursday night was anything but overwhelming for the Warriors.
“We returned a core group of guys that had the chance to do this last year so I don’t think there was much new,” Methacton coach Jeff Derstine said.
The two teams split in the regular season — the Vikings won 44-39 on Dec. 18; the Warriors won 53-51 on Jan. 19 — but the momentum felt as if it was Methacton’s from the tip.
“That’s a really good basketball team, who we expect to go very far in postseason play,” PV coach Mike Poysden said. “They’re just a handful to guard, and when you think you’re doing a good job on one guy, other guys know how to make plays. They have the complete roster what you need to make deep runs in the postseason.”