TodayPIAA Boys' Basketball Second Round Previews: Headed into the unknown
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Mechanicsburg point guard Chris White leads the Wildcats into tonight's encounter with Norristown.
Tonight’s second round PIAA boys’ basketball clash between Mechanicsburg and Norristown could very easily have a subhead.
One of those cheap one liners that usually accompany the big prize fights in Vegas.
Uncharted Waters.
Take Mechanicsburg (21-10), it’s new to this whole concept of playing in the second round of the Class AAAA tournament. No Mechanicsburg team has ever reached this point, and no player on this season’s squad will be satisfied if the run ends now.
Norristown (29-1) on the other hand? It might be here a year early, but it’s been a long time coming, as the Eagles have missed out on the PIAA tournament in seven of the last eight seasons.
The two will collide at Reading’s Geigle Complex with tip-off scheduled for 6 p.m.
“It’s been good,” said Norristown head coach Mike Evans. “It’s been a while, we always ended up playing the Chesters’ and other top teams (in the district playoffs). Every year there’s been a road block.”
This season things are a little different. The Eagles were one of the last remaining unbeatens in state before losing to the Clippers in this season’s District 1 final.
As Mechanicsburg head coach Bob Strickler would tell you, they aren’t 29-1 by accident either.
“They have a couple of guys that can get hot and shoot it,” Strickler said. “They can put so much pressure on you on defense.
“We need to do what we’ve done in the first 31 games of the year. I’m a believer, I hope the kids are believers in what we do and what is making us successful.”
Strickler hopes his team defense can force Norristown into taking more perimeter shots, but the Wildcats coach won’t shy away from playing straight man-to-man defense either.
“They’re definitely really athletic,” said senior point guard Chris White, who shut down State College leading scorer Pat St. Andrews last weekend.
“I would say different aspects of their game are similar to Steel-High, Susquehanna, or even York and Milton Hershey. But I would say the difference between Norristown and those teams and what makes them so tough to beat is they bring more to the table than just athleticism.”
Norristown is led by guard Kalif Wyatt who is averaging 16.6 points per game and has exploded for games of 27, 29 and 26 in recent weeks.
The Eagles also have a notable post presence with Quentin Watson and Maurice Briggs.
“We’re a fundamental basketball team,” Evans said. “We have a group of unselfish guys that love the game. We won’t do anything special. We’ll run a disciplined style and add a little pressure and up tempo basketball.”
“One key for us is we want to have a shot in the fourth quarter,” added Strickler. “We want it to be a game in the fourth because time and time again we’ve been very successful in those situations.”
Class AA
Trinity’s run takes them to Pottsville’s Martz Hall for a 7:30 p.m. contest against District 2 runner-up Wilkes-Barre GAR.
In order for the Shamrocks to advance past the second round and into the quarterfinals since the 2006 tournament they will have to shoot better than 28 percent from the field.
Despite the poor shooting effort, head coach Larry Kostelac was pleased with the all-around performance of his Shamrocks in their opening round victory over Central Martinsburg.
“We played so well, we moved well, our spacing was good, the only thing we didn’t do was shoot well,” said Kostelac. “We walked away shooting 28-percent for the night and that’s not good. We didn’t do that all year long and I don’t anticipate it happening again.”
The Shamrocks defense will look to slow GAR’s senior guard Tyseane Whitt, who averages 13.9 points per game and has hit 54 3-pointers.
Grenadiers center Breon Phillips also nets 9.7 points per game.
The Grenadiers have struggled at times against zone defense, and in those games Phillips became nonexistent.
“(Phillips) is a very strong athlete,” Kostelac said. “He’s a good player.”
Kostelac will actually travel from Philadelphia where he stayed overnight on business and said he hopes to make it in time to Pottsville for tip-off.
