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Central Bucks South 50, North Penn 48
Both teams treated this one like a playoff game as both need wins to qualify for the District One Class 6A playoff field, and CB South emerged with the two-point road victory thanks to a 15-foot jumper by senior Alex Dietz with one second remaining on the clock.
Dietz finished with 24 points and seven rebounds, and when the game was on the line in the fourth quarter, he came up huge for the Titans.
“Alex was Alex tonight,” said Titans coach Jason Campbell. “He wanted it.
There’s been a couple games that were close, last second shots and unfortunately – maybe it’s my fault – but we didn’t get him the ball. Teams played really good defense on him and some other guys took the shot and unfortunately it didn’t go in for a couple of games.
“Tonight, once we got the ball in Alex’s hands, I knew what he was going to do. He’s going to make sure it went down to the very end and take his shot. The shot that he hit is a shot that he’s won (games) for us in the past.”
CB South trailed at one point in the third quarter 32-19, as North Penn was dominating inside, led by 6-foot-6 senior center Matt Swanson, who finished with 19 points and nine rebounds. But the Titans chipped away, with two key 3-pointers by Nick Wursta off the bench and another by point guard Evan D’Orazio as they pulled within two by the end of the quarter.
“It was all second half,” Campbell said. “Our discussion, you would think I would be in there yelling and screaming, but I kept a low demeanor and asked them some questions. Did we push the ball in transition? The answer was no. Are we blocking people out? Are we getting rebounds? The answer was no.
“So I asked them, ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to do these things in the second half and give yourself a chance to win? This is a playoff game.’”
North Penn ended up trailing by as many as five in the fourth, but rallied late itself, tying the game on a bucket in the lane by junior Josh Jones with 18 seconds remaining.
D’Orazio finished with nine points for CB South, while Wursta and Michael Farley had six points each.
“One of our guys (Josh Conseletti) wasn’t able to play in the second half with an injury,” Campbell said. “Nick Wursta started the second half and had some big 3s for us. He played really well and set the tone for us.
We had Josiah Harrison come in and he gave us great minutes in the transition offense, coming up with some boards and boxing people out. Those are things that don’t show up in the boxscore.”
The win improved the Titans to 11-10 overall (6-5 SOL), with one game remaining Thursday at CB West. They are currently occupying the No. 24 position in the 24-team District One Class 6A field.
North Penn was led by Swanson’s 19 points, while Jones had 12 and Mike Chaffee added 10. The Knights (8-13, 4-7 SOL) entered Tuesday at No. 26, and now need to win Thursday at conference champ Pennridge and hope for some help if they want a shot at the postseason.
Game Summary brought to you by
Central Bucks South 10 5 21 14-50
North Penn 13 13 12 10-48
CB South (50) – Mike Waltrich 1 0-0 2; Evan D’Orazio 3 2-2 9; Alex Dietz 11 1-3 24; Nick Wursta 2 0-0 6; Michael Farley 2 2-5 6; Josh Consoletti 1 0-0 3. Totals 20 5-10 50.
North Penn (48) – Josh Jones 6 0-1 12; Joe Larkins 1 1-2 3; Mike Chaffee 5 0-2 10; Rob Carangi 1 0-0 2; Matt Swanson 8 3-5 19; Carter Houlihan 1 0-0 2. Totals 22 4-10 48.
3-point goals: CBS-Wursta 2, D’Orazio 1, Dietz 1, Consoletti 1