PIAA State Basketball Tournament Boys 2nd round

Steel-High, Daniel Boone and Freire Charter move onto quarterfinals
By Gorden Blain
HERSHEY -- The PIAA State playoffs is the tournament of second chances.

Brackets with as many as seven teams from a single district means that teams that lost games in their district tournaments are still alive in the hunt for a state championship when the state tournament begins.

Steel-High, often an annual entrant as District 3 AAA champion, lost the district championship game to Susquehanna Township two weeks ago.

The Rollers may have left that prize get away but they have played their first two state playoff games with a focus and energy that demonstrates they have all intentions on avoiding any such misstep on the road to University Park.

The Rollers had all five starters score in double figures on Tuesday night and crushed Hershey 71-51 in the state tournament second round. Steel-High (25-6), which has outscored its first two state tournament opponents 142-84, advances to the state quarterfinals Friday night against Bradford (20-7) which defeated Hopewell.

Steel-High’s impressive win capped a second round tripleheader at Hersheypark Arena that drew an announced paid crowd of 2,605.

In the opener, District 12 Class A champion Freire Charter defeated District 3 champion Scotland 50-46 by scoring the final six points of the game in the final 51 seconds.

In another second round AAA game preceeding Steel-High‘s win, Daniel Boone trailed Eastern York 58-44 with 6:05 left in the game and then rallied to win 74-72 when Dan Sekulski grabbed teammate Neil Rusiewicz’s missed layup and then put in the game-winning basket at the buzzer.

Freire Charter (14-6) advances to face District 1 champion Girard College (25-3) on Friday night. Next up for Daniel Boone (25-7) is District 2 champion Scranton Prep (23-7), which defeated Greencastle-Antrim.

“There’s three goals at Steel-High,” said Steel-High coach Mike Pilsitz. “Win league. Win districts. Win states. We left the district slip away. There’s a fire now to get this one. There’s a different focus with this team right now.”

Hershey and Steel-High collided in the District 3 tournament and the Trojans were a hand full before the Rollers doused their hopes for an upset 63-56. This time, the Trojans had the Rollers’ full attention.

“We didn’t get the gist of how bad that team wanted it,” recalled Pilsitz. “We underestimated that the first game.”

Not this time. Hershey led 4-3 when Steel-High’s Jordan Smith sank a three-point shot to give the Rollers the lead and they never trailed again. The Trojans were able to melt away some of Steel-High’s 25-10 lead midway through the second quarter and they trailed 28-21 at the half.

But Steel-High pulled away again in the third quarter and stretched the lead to 68-43 with less than three minutes left in the game.

In all phases of the game, Steel-High dominated. The Rollers made 28 of 49 shots while their defense forced Hershey to miss 36 of its 54 shots.

Sophomore guard Ryan Hill led the Rollers with 17 points. Senior center Josh Proctor had 16 points and sophomore forward Jeff Davis had 12 points. Senior guard Lance Chisholm and junior guard Jordan Smith each scored 10 points.

Davis blocked five shots and had nine rebounds. Proctor blocked three shots and had eight rebounds.

“When those two have energy, it’s going to be hard to deal with,” said Pilsitz.

Kevin Kettl led Hershey (17-12) with 21 points. Brian Ongeri had 11.

Daniel Boone played catch-up all night. Boone erased Eastern’s nine-point second quarter lead and was within one at 38-37 in the third quarter. But Eastern responded and pulled away again to lead 52-42 at the end of the third quarter. The Golden Knights (19-11) went up 58-44 on freshman forward Andrew Nicholas’ layup with 6:05 left in the game.

The Blazers wouldn’t quit. Led by Sekulski, Jeff Sowers and Rusiewicz, who came off the bench, Boone whittled Eastern’s lead down.

“They never gave up,” said Daniel Boone coach John Butkus. “We’re down 10 with five minutes left. I was telling them we’re in good shape. With 2:22, now it’s five, I told them, ‘Ok, we just cut the lead in half. Chunks at a time.”

Rusiewicz scored all nine of his points for the game in one minute. At 3:12 he drilled a three-point basket. He followed that with a three-point play. He topped it off with another three-point basket. The Eastern lead went from 63-55 to 66-64 in one minute.

“Here’s a kid who is the sixth-seventh man on the team and gets a couple of minutes,” said Butkus. “Neil got the confidence. We couldn’t pull him out of the game.”

Sekulski’s free throw melted the margin down to 68-67 with 1:17 left to play. Yet again, Eastern began to pull away. Freshman Austin Tillotson sank two free throws with 47 seconds left in the game to give the Knights a 72-67 lead.

But Sowers buried a long three-point shot and added a layup after an Eastern turnover to tie the score at 72-72 with 24 seconds left in the game.

Then in the final 10 seconds, Rusiewicz stole the ball and raced for the basket to beat the buzzer. He missed the layup but Sekulski was there to grab the rebound and put it in the basket to win the game for Boone as the horn sounded.

Boone outscored Eastern 32-20 in the fourth quarter. Sekulski scored 13 of his team-high 31 points in the fourth quarter. Sowers scored eight of his 19 points in the fourth quarter. Rusiewicz scored all of his nine points in the fourth quarter.

Eastern’s freshman combo of Nicholas and Tillotson almost carried the Knights to the quarterfinals. Nicholas scored a game-high 33 points and Tillotson had 15. Kevin McMullen scored 12 points.

When Nicholas scored off of a pass from Tillotson and Tillotson followed that with two free throws, the Knights had built the lead back to five at 72-67 and looked safe with 47 seconds left. But two costly turnovers in the final half-minute opened the door for Boone to complete its rally.

Freire Charter took full advantage of the big stage provided by the PIAA state tournament to gain a reputation by knocking off Scotland (21-5), which has earned its respect with a number of state championships.

“They’re good,” said Scotland coach Randy Taylor. “Their big guys altered a lot of shots inside. It forced us out to the perimeter. We’re used to getting a lot of good looks. They negated that. Their length and athleticism is impressive.”

The performance of the Dragons’ front line of 6-7 sophomore Octavious Booker, 6-4 junior Abraham Bah and 6-5 junior Koron Reed was the difference.

Reed‘s play, in particular, commanded attention. He gave Scotland’s 6-6 center Byron Johnson all he could handle. Reed scored nine points, blocked four shots, altered numerous other Scotland shots and had five rebounds.

Johnson was productive but not dominant as he had been throughout the District 3 tournament. He had six blocked shots and eight rebounds but scored just six points.

It was Reed who soared high above the rim to tip in Jarrod Denard’s missed layup with 33 seconds left in the game. The basket came after a Scotland turnover. It snapped a 46-46 tie and turned out to be the game winner.

“His duty was to keep number 14 (Johnson) off the glass,“ said Freire Charter coach Lawrence Threadgill. “He did his job. He’s a hard worker. He comes to practice everyday. He’s a good student. He’s a good athlete.

“I was surprised by him today,” Threadgill said. “Against Pius X, (Octavious) Booker gave us that kind of game. After that, Koron came to me and said ‘You know what coach? I’ve got something for you this time. I gave him a picture of number 14 and told him to take it home and put on his mirror. He can take that picture down now.”

With Reed and Booker patrolling the paint, the Cadets felt more comfortable launching three-point shots from the perimeter. It almost got them through this round. They made eight of 15 three-point shots but made just nine of their 45 shots inside the arc.

Debronis Warren led Scotland with 16 points, including five three-point shots, and Taaj Cousin had 14 points.

Cousin’s layup with 6:12 left in the first half gave Scotland a 14-12 lead but Freire owned the rest of the first half and took a 27-18 at the halftime.

Despite his team-high 20 points and obvious abundance of skill, Denard committed a number of turnovers and his poor shot selection and ball handling decisions helped fuel Scotland’s rally. The Dragons’ lead had dwindled to 35-33 to start the fourth quarter.

“It’s just not a one-person game,“ said Threadgill. “We can’t go out there and play street ball and expect to win. It’s more than Jarrod Denard for us.”

Warren’s three-point basket finally got the Cadets back in front at 42-40 with 3:48 left in the game. The lead changed hands twice until yet another three-point shot by Warren with 1:15 left gave Scotland a 46-44 lead.

But Denard got to the foul line and made both free throws to tie the game at 46-46 to set the stage for Cook to get his big tip in. Scotland committed another turnover and Rysheen Dorn’s fast break layup finished off the Cadets.

“We were expecting a little bit more from (Scotland), a bit more penetration,” said Threadgill.