Coatesville

mate Jordan Young. “I’m sure at some point we will be able to look back on it and saywe had a great season.”

The Raiders’ 14-game winning streak came to a stunning halt three days earlier against 17th-seeded Central Bucks East, another Suburban One League opponent. And Friday’s outing was frustratingly similar as Coatesville blew a sizable first half lead, faltering badly in the third and early in the fourth, and was never able to recover.

“We had a third quarter lead in both games and kind of fumbled it away,”

said Red Raiders head coach Chuck Moore.

“We are dealing with 16to 18-year-old boys. Human nature tends to set in. We were 24-1 heading in and failed to understand the target on our back. Teams were coming for us, and it doesn’t matter if you are home.”

How bad was it down the stretch? The Raiders’ first field goal of the fourth quarter came with 1:47 remaining and the Hatters ahead by eight. In the second half alone, Coatesville was outscored 43-25 and only connected on six field goals.

“We caved a little bit,” Moore said. “A lot of the success (Hatboro-Horsham) had was based on our mistakes. We’ve been built all season on defense and that

faltered. Our defensive average is around 45 for a game, so to give that up in a half is devastating.”

Thanks to four early 3-pointers from senior guard Rome Boyer, the Raiders opened a 10-point margin midway through the second quarter and led 32-23 at the half.

Butmysteriously, Coatesville went to a semi-stall early in the second half, the offense went stagnant and the Hatters crawled back into contention. It certainly didn’t help when senior center JustusMartinez was whistled for a technical foul as Young was in the middle of completing a 3-point play. Hatboro-Horsham wound up making four free throws on the next possession, which was a big

part of the surge.

“The technical was kind of a dagger,” Moore acknowledged.

The Hatters committed just one turnover and had a 19-11 scoring edge in the third quarter to pull within a point heading into the final period.

“We got complacent,” Moore explained. “They went into a zone (defense) and we didn’t get anything against it.”

In the final eight minutes, Hatboro-Horsham scored 10 of the first 13 points to take command. The Raiders committed nine of their 20 turnovers in the fourth quarter. And Coatesville’s pressure defense yielded just five turnovers in the second half after forcing 11 in the first.

“That’s not how we played during the regular season,” Moore said.

“We just made some simple mistakes in big games,” Young echoed. “The turnovers were a huge part of what happened.”

TheHatters got 24 points fromJay Davis and are now 13-12 overall.

Boyer scored all of his points in the first half and finished with a game-high 14. Young chipped in 11 points and seven rebounds, andHugan added 10 points. It was the last high school appearance for all three.

“We just got too caught up in the moment. We didn’t execute the way we should have,” Hugan said.

Moore said that his team’s postseason woes did not surprise him because: “some of our struggles were present before the tournament started.” And despite the sour ending, he found a silver lining.

“They fought to the end. There was never any quit in them,” he said. “They set the foundation for what Coatesville basketball wants to be and has always been: the blue-collar, hard-working type of team.”