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#7 BENSALEM 51, #18 DOWNINGTOWN EAST 43
Bensalem used a formula that has been successful for most of the season on its road to Temple Friday night.
With smothering defense and a whole lot of offense from junior James Ashford, the Owls led from start to finish and put away a close game late in a District One Class 6A quarterfinal played before a raucous home crowd Friday.
“I’m on cloud 30 – forget cloud nine,” coach Ron Morris said. “We’re super, super excited. I’m just so happy for the kids, giving them an opportunity to succeed, and they’re taking advantage of it.
“We’ve always preached all year about coming together – if we come together special things can happen. The last two games they have really played as a unit and different guys step up at different moments.”
With the win, Bensalem (19-6) advanced to Tuesday’s semifinals at the Liacouras Center where it will play third-seeded Cheltenham in the first of two games.
“We preach all the time about being good young men, and they’ve grown as young men, and that’s why we were able to get to Temple,” Morris said. “Temple is going to be a great experience for them. It’s a once in a lifetime for them. We haven’t been to the district semifinals since ‘91, so it’s new for them and they deserve it because of all the hard work that they put in.”
With their second-round win over Spring-Ford on Tuesday, the seventh-seeded Owls added to their season of milestone accomplishments by qualifying for states. Friday, they upped that one more against a Downingtown East team that upset second-seeded Garnet Valley in its second round game.
But it was far from easy.
Bensalem used its trademark defense and jumped up 10 points in the first quarter, but in the second quarter, it went cold as the visiting Cougars rallied to tie the game at 15 with a 10-0 run.
The Owls’ offense was out of sync, as was leading scorer Ashford, who couldn’t find the range at all from outside.
“He was struggling early, but he still ends up with 23 points (for the game) because his motor has a different gear that everyone doesn’t have,” Morris said. “What was preached to him when he came out was, ‘Relax, don’t put pressure on yourself. Play basketball and do what you do.”
Ashford was able to get in his groove by taking the ball to the basket and getting to the foul line.
“I talked to my coach,” he said. “I had to start attacking the basket more and the ball will go into the net. Once I saw the ball go into the net, then I got to the free throw line and I started knocking them down.”
The Owls also amped up their defense when the offense was struggling as that kept Downingtown East at bay and was eventually able to generate offense. The Cougars were just 17-for-49 (35 percent) from the field for the game and 4-for-19 from 3-point range. They also turned the ball over 15 times.
“Our brand of basketball is always on the defensive end,” Morris said. “Offense, we usually get a lot in transition. We’ve been working on half-court sets but you know it’s like that thin line. We’ve got the athletes, we try to make plays, let them kind of create on their own, but a defensive-minded team is what we are. We don’t ever let up defensively.
“Jeremiah (Alexander) – the way he defended (Andrew) King. King comes in averaging 25, and he held him to (eight) points. Jerry really stepped up to the challenge and really battled.”
Travis Robinson came off the bench and scored 10 points and played solid defense despite foul trouble, while also grabbing five rebounds. Point guard Aaron Sanders struggled from the field but was solid with the ball and went 4-for-4 late from the foul line to finish with eight points.
“Aaron is growing right in front of our eyes as a floor leader,” Morris said.
Alexander had six points and eight rebounds. Luke Zeidler and Unger had six and five rebounds, respectively.
Needless to say, this was a total team effort.
“This team is all about together,” Morris said. “We’ve been preaching all year about buying in and playing together and the last two games, it’s finally starting to click and you can see what can happen. Someone like Blaise (Unger) plays a limited amount of minutes, but tonight he played decent amount because he just came with defensive intensity. He made a big bucket for us (when the game was close in the fourth quarter).
“Travis (Robinson) gave us good minutes. He’s our spark off the bench. Justin Johnson might have defended everyone on the court. He just all around played well. Luke Zeidler was attacking. When he attacks and is aggressive, it definitely changes our team offensively, so that helped.”
The Owls have found their stride since a disappointing 56-39 loss to Pennridge in the semifinals of the SOL Tournament on their home court.
“We had the week of practice – we talked as a staff and said, ‘We need to change things up,’ so we changed up some practice times,” Morris said. “We said, ‘We need some team bonding,’ so we took the kids to Texas Roadhouse for a team meal on Thursday night.
“On Friday when our girls were going to play at Souderton, instead of practicing, we went in the pool and played all different pool games. They were jumping off the diving board, playing pool basketball, pool dodge ball. We just wanted to bond without basketball, just take a break. They were emotionally drained, and they came back focused and here we are – we’re ready for the rest of the season. It was the team bonding that really brought us together.”
Game Summary brought to you by
Downingtown East 5 13 10 15-43
Bensalem 15 6 12 18-51
Downingtown East (43) – Jayden Rowe 7 1-2 15; James Basilii 0 2-2 2; David Owsik 5 0-0 12; Grant Umberger 2 0-0 4; Andrew King 2 2-4 8; George Bousum 1 0-0 2. Totals 17 5-8 43.
Bensalem (51) – Travis Robinson 4 2-3 10; Aaron Sanders 2 4-4 8; Jeremiah Alexander 3 0-2 6; James Ashford 7 9-14 23; Blaise Unger 1 0-0 2; Luke Zeidler 1 0-0 2. Totals 18 15-23 51.
3-point goals: DE-Owsik 2, King 2