HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL COVERAGE
Franklin Regional captain scores 18 in final quarter
For three quarters, Nick Leopold’s contribution to Franklin Regional’s offense pretty much matched his size. The smallest player on the court at 5 feet 9, Leopold had done little. Three shots. One basket. Two points. Then the fourth quarter came and Leopold was giant. Heck, he might as well have been Shaq to Shaler.
Leopold was huge in the fourth quarter, scoring 18 points and bringing Franklin Regional back from a fivepoint deficit. With Leopold taking charge, Franklin Regional went on to defeat host Shaler, 62-57, in a key WPIAL Class 5A Section 3 game.
The win gives Franklin Regional sole possession of second place in the section with a 5-1 record (10-3 overall). Shaler, ranked No. 5 in 5A by the PostGazette, already had more wins this season than any of the previous six. But the Titans fell to 4-2 in the section and 9-4 overall.
After the game, Leopold had a small band-aid on his right cheek. An elbow in the fourth quarter had opened a small cut. But in the end, Leopold delivered the knockout punch to Shaler.
“He’s our senior captain, our leader and we go as he goes,” said Franklin Regional coach Steve Scorpion. “He was the best player on the court in the fourth quarter.”
The game had somewhat of a slow pace for three quarters and Shaler took a 39-34 lead early in the fourth. But Leopold, who finished with 20 points, scored 16 in four minutes and was the main reason Franklin Regional turned a five-point deficit into a 55-43 lead. He scored on drives, a pull-up jumper and made two 3-pointers.
“I really just calmed myself down. For some reason, I was playing a little tight,” said Leopold, a two-year starter who was averaging 10 points coming into the game. “I pride myself on trying to lead this team. We have other great leaders, but I really take pride in myself picking everyone up. That’s what I did.”
A natural question is what set off Leopold in the final quarter? Well, it was actually a simple case of Franklin Regional going simple.
Scorpion simply put the ball in Leopold’s hands on every possession in the fourth quarter and had a player set a high ball screen near the top of the key. Leopold came off the screen and either made a play himself or passed to a teammate. He made a play himself time and time again.
“We either hedge hard on that screen or trap it. We didn’t do, either,” said Shaler coach Rob Niedeberger. “We just didn’t execute defensively.”
Scorpion said he hadn’t used the ball-screen play for Leopold all season.
“We just simplified things,” said Scorpion. “We did it once or twice and it worked. I’m not stupid. If it’s going to work, I’m going to keep going to it.”
Leopold’s 3-pointer put Franklin Regional ahead, 50-41, with 3:21 left. He then scored a basket and was fouled with 2:57 left. He missed the free throw, but the ball got tipped to the corner, where Leopold grabbed it and made a 3-pointer with 2:53 left. That was the real dagger. Leopold made 6 of 8 shots in the fourth quarter.
Franklin Regional also got a nice performance from guard Thomas Merante, who made five 3-pointers and finished with 24 points. Junior guard Mekhi Reynolds led Shaler with 21 points.
“I thought we played at their pace for a lot of the game,” said Niedeberger. “We try to play fast, but we slowed down. We saw them playing a zone and we said, ‘Oh, we better slow down.’ That’s not what we wanted to do.”
There was no slowing Leopold in the fourth.