Garnet Valley stops Stover, UD
CONCORD >> When the bombs stopped falling, there was no trace of the bumpy start Garnet Valley weathered Tuesday to reach the quarterfinal round of the District 1 Class 6A boys basketball tournament.
With Carl Schaller taking it to the rack and Justin Langan throwing shots in from the parking lot, the Jaguars rolled to a 6941 victory over an Upper Dublin squad good enough to have ended the postseason of Central League competitor Haverford.
Hard to believe the Jaguars trailed the Cardinals 6-0 and 8-2, much of the damage coming from 6-7 center Drew Stover, who scored a game-high 27 points, including all of his team’s points in the third quarter.
“He’s a really good player,” Jaguars coach Mike Brown said. “Our Achilles heel is we’re not very big. But we finally triple-teamed him and gave him a hard time.”
More than that, the Jaguars (15-3) gave the Upper Dublin defense fits. Schaller scored 19 points, Langan 17 to lead the Jaguars, who now oppose Perkiomen Valley, which defeated Pennridge 56-52.
The way Langan shot the ball Tuesday, drilling four jumpers in
the first quarter, including a buzzer beater that brought the small crowd to its feet, it opened the lane a little more for Schaller.
Langan sank three of the Jaguars’ nine 3-pointers, catching nothing but net. This couldn’t have been the same guy who was 0-for-7 beyond the arc in his last start.
“This was a big game for me to bounce back,” Langan said. “We won the Central League championship game but I shot pretty bad there. I was so happy we won and personally I needed to bounce back. I told myself I’m not going to let that happen again.”
Langan got the first baske for the Jaguars, drilling a difficult turnaround jumper after they fell behind 6-0.
Schaller followed with a trey, Max Koehler made a couple of free throws, Gannon McKee and Ryan Wooten bombed 3-pointers, Langdon added another and it was over except for the math. Wooten also drilled three 3-pointers, McKee a pair. The Jaguars led by double-digits the rest of the evening.
“Carl opens up stuff for everybody getting to the rim,” Langan said. “Once he gets to the rim it opens up kickouts and everything. And we made our shots tonight. When you think about Garnet Valley, you think about three-point shooters. And we made them pay for that tonight.”
With no playback round, the districts have turned into a win or go home tournament. The Cardinals (109) had won two of their last three games, including the upset of the Fords, before running into the Jaguars.
The way Garnet Valley is playing, it’s going to take more than a 1,000-point scorer like Stover, who will play basketball at Millersville University next fall, coronavirus protocols willing, to put them down.
“Defensively we’ve been playing great but Stover, he did a really good job tonight,” Langan said. “I think we could have played a little better defense on him. But we contained the best of them. This feels good. We’re on a roll. We’ve won like 13 out of our last 14. We’re playing our best basketball right now. We’re trying to keep it going as far as we can.”
When Brown cleared the bench with 2:19 left, Tyler Knapp threw in a 3-pointer from downtown. Even the bench guys are playing their best ball of the season.
“We made a good team look not so good,” Brown said. “They won at Haverford, and that’s hard to do. We thought we’d have our hands full. When you shoot that well, it’s difficult. And we really shot well.”