Pocono Mountain West wins Jeff Dailey Memorial tourney
Parkland and Allentown Central Catholic lose openers
The earliest start of a high school boys basketball season in many years provided some interesting results over the weekend.
Some coaches weren’t happy they had five fewer practice days to prepare for the start of games thanks to the PIAA, which reduced required practice time from 15 to 10 days before allowing play.
Whether the reduced time in the gym affected the first days of the season is not known, but it’s clear there will not be many, if any, teams going undefeated or even getting through the 2022 portion of the 2022-23 season unscathed.
Many of the area’s best teams chose to use their nonleague games before the start of league play by matching up with quality opponents from outside the area. In many cases, those tough out-ofarea games produced losses.
Parkland, the defending Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and District 11 6A champs, lost its opener to a traditionally strong Lower Merion team.
Perennial power Allentown Central Catholic fell to Cardinal O’Hara from the Philadelphia Catholic League.
Freedom, one of the favorites to win the EPC because of its experience, fell to Holy Redeemer of Wilkes-Barre.
Emmaus split a pair of games in a tip-off tournament at Interboro High School.
Bethlehem Catholic, the defending District 11 4A champs, lost its opener to Pocono Mountain West before bouncing back against Roberto Clemente Charter in the Jeff Dailey Memorial Tournament at Notre Dame-Green Pond.
Pocono West and Executive Education Charter had the most impressive weekends of the area’s heavyweights.
The Panthers won the Dailey tournament, beating host Notre Dame 62-45 for the title.
The four-time defending district champion Raptors won the Cheltenham Tip-Off Tournament with wins over Abraham Lincoln High of Philadelphia and Cheltenham.
Moravian Academy also got off to a 2-0 start with wins over Lincoln Leadership and Pen Argyl, and East Stroudsburg South is another 2-0 team with wins in a tournament over Bloomsburg and North Penn-Mansfield.
A closer look at some of the weekend’s best games and performances:
Emmaus splits
The Green Hornets fell in their opener 61-59 to Methacton despite a 31-point effort by Will Barber, and then got 20 from Barber in a 72-25 rout of Interboro. Dylan Darville, coming off a record-breaking football
season as a receiver, scored 12 points against Methacton and 21 against Interboro.
Coval’s 27 not enough
Junior star Nick Coval scored
27 points in Parkland’s opener, but it wasn’t enough in a 72-57 loss to Lower Merion. The Aces have won seven state championships and are coming off a 27-4 season that included a trip to the PIAA Class 6A semifinals. Jordan Meekins scored 20 and Sam Wright added 19 for Kobe Bryant’s alma mater.
Palmerton wins opener
The Blue Bombers are expected to contend for their first league title since 1989 and got off to a good start behind a 17-point performance from junior Brayden Hosier in a 45-35 win over Lehighton.
Whitehall spoils Easton coach’s debut
In a nonleague game between two Eastern Pennsylvania Conference members, Luke Keppel scored 21 points and Ethan Ringenberger added 14 in a 69-46 win at Easton that spoiled Eric Jacobs’ debut as the Red Rovers coach. Both Keppel and Ringenberger
had four 3-pointers.
O’Hara edges Central Catholic
Griffin Patridge is expected to play a significant role for this year’s Vikings squad, but since his football season ended Friday night in a 31-10 loss to Aliquippa in the PIAA Class 4A semifinals, he didn’t play in the basketball opener. Jahrel Vigo scored 14 points and Anthony Jones added nine but it wasn’t enough to prevent a 54-51 loss to Cardinal O’Hara.
Pearse McGuinn, a 6-foot-7 junior, led O’Hara with 19 points. ACCHS hurt itself by missing eight of 17 free throw attempts.
Pagan paces Panthers
The post-Christian Fermin era got off to a decent start for Pocono Mountain West as Julian “Juju” Pagan scored 31 points to lead the Panthers past Bethlehem Catholic 65-58 and then shook off foul trouble to score 21 in the Dailey tournament title game. He was an easy choice as MVP.
Becahi’s Alex Cercado had 26 against West and then 24 in the consolation game against Roberto Clemente.
Scholl wins debut
Northampton beat Northwestern Lehigh 58-30 to get Matt Scholl a win in his coaching debut.
Dieruff wins opener
Dieruff hasn’t had a winning season since going 13-12 in 200708, but the Huskies got things off to a good start this season with a 50-49 win over perennial District 2 power Hazleton.
Buster Fallah scored 20 points for the Huskies and Xion Chapman was strong inside with 13 points and 12 rebounds.
League openers
The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and Colonial League begin league play Tuesday night.
Among the most attractive EPC games feature Allen, which didn’t play over the weekend, at Emmaus; Northampton at Parkland; Whitehall at Central Catholic; Nazareth, which is off to a 2-0 start, at Liberty; and Bethlehem Catholic at Freedom.
In the Colonial League, Northwestern Lehigh at Palmerton is a battle of two teams that had good offseasons. Catasauqua, hoping to win a game for the first time since the 2020-21 season, plays at Salisbury.