Lebanon High Can’t Seal the Deal « Lebanon Sports Buzz

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Lebanon High Can’t Seal the Deal

Around one's neck, silver is much heavier than gold. ♦

Feb 18, 2017
Jeff Falk
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BY JEFF FALK

NEFFSVILLE – They all hurt. Some more than others.

And the ones that hurt the worst have the power to make us stronger. Because kids are resilient.

But what was especially distressing about this one for the Lebanon boys’ basketball team was that it afforded it a glimpse of how it might end.

On Friday night at Manheim Township High School, the Cedars were upset by Lancaster Catholic 49-47, in the 46th annual Lancaster-Lebanon League championship game. In a physical and emotional defensive struggle, Lebanon played hard, but was outplayed by the Crusaders – especially during crunch time.

Two free throws from Luis Aquino-Rios with 33 seconds to go gave Lebanon a 47-46 edge. But the Crusaders netted the eventual game-winner 18 seconds later on ‘big’ Sean Landis’ strong, quick move along the baseline, and a turnover on their next possession precluded the Cedars from getting off another shot.

A charity toss by Landis with two seconds remaining provided the final outcome, and Lebanon didn’t have enough time to go the length of the court.

“I told the guys, ‘It’s going to hurt,'” said Lebanon head coach Tim Speraw. “You put in a certain amount of time and energy, and you’re just two points short. You’ve got to let it hurt. You’ve got to see it as making you stronger. But the sun is going to come up tomorrow.

“There’s no consolation,” continued Speraw. “We don’t have moral victories. We lost the game. I feel like we always play hard, like we always compete. Tonight we just didn’t score enough points.”

The loss dropped Lebanon, the champions of Section One, to 20-5 overall and 8-5 all-time in Lancaster-Lebanon championship games. The Cedars will take a week off before they host the winner between C.D. East and Chambersburg, on Friday at 7 p.m. at home, in the quarterfinal round of the District Three Class AAAAAA postseason.

For Lancaster Catholic, the now 21-4 runner-up from Section Three, it was its second L-L title overall.

“They got something baseline,” said Speraw of the decisive final seconds. “We were a little slow rotating over. Earlier we had those two turnovers in-a-row. They were just two bad turnovers, and then they (the Crusaders) came down and hit two threes. That was a turning point.

“It seemed like we couldn’t get in sync,” added Speraw. “We couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively. A lot of credit to them (the Crusaders). They play tough defense.”

Every possession seemed to matter, as neither side led by more than six points all evening.

That lead was held by Lancaster Catholic, at 46-40 with 2:14 to go. But Khalique Washington nailed a rare three-pointer for Lebanon and Ortiz worked his way inside for a deuce to set the stage for Aquino-Rios’ foul shots and the final frantic seconds.

“Tonight he started carrying us a little more,” said Speraw of Washington. “It was a very physical game. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

“They (the Crusaders) packed it in a little more on us,” Speraw continued. “I thought we got too focused on going inside. And they (the Crusaders) focused on us inside.”

Staring down a 28-23 hole early in the second half, the Cedars went inside to get the lead. The Cedars’ 8-0 run was made up of six points by Washington, a driving lay-in by Ortiz and by holding the Crusaders without a point for a span of 3:22.

“I figured it was going to be a defensive struggle,” said Speraw. “They (the Crusaders) put a lot of pride in their defense. We had a couple of costly turnovers. We didn’t do what we needed to do, with the lead or down the stretch.”

Washington paced the Lebanon attack with 15 points, while Ortiz collected 11. Lebanon went 10-for-17 at the foul line.

“I thought we did a really good job on (Lancaster Catholic’s Danny) Bomberger, limiting his touches and making him take tough shots,” said Speraw. “They’re (the Crusaders) tough. They’re balanced. They have eight or nine guys who can do a lot of the same things.”

A Camryn Shaak three-pointer, an Ortiz trey and a Sabu Pereya lay-in added up to an 8-2 run and a 21-19 Lebanon lead, 3:42 before intermission. But the Cedars didn’t score during the rest of the first half, and Lancaster Catholic carried a 24-21 edge to the locker room.

“Before the season, I said we could be pretty good or we could be .500,” said Speraw. “It depended on how the kids came together. They decided to come together. They work hard. They listen, we come out and compete.

“I’d say maybe a quarter of the way through the season, after the losses to Governor Mifflin and Cedar Crest, we started to roll a little bit,” Speraw added. “We got a little more confidence. We felt like we could compete with anyone.”

With Shaak, Washington and Felix Kortright doing work for Lebanon, the game was tied at six four minutes in. But Lancaster Catholic outscored the Cedars 6-3 over the remainder of the opening period, then assumed a 14-9 margin early in the second.

“It’s just about time,” said Speraw. “It’s just going to take some time. But we’ll get back on track.”

To purchase images in this article email jkifalk2005@yahoo.com, or to view more go to https://lebanonsportsbuzz.com/photo-gallery/.

Lebanon Boys’ Basketball Results



Date	Teams	Score
12/09 7:30 pm	Red Lion Lebanon at Lebanon	39 52
12/10 7:30 pm	Cedar Crest at Lebanon	58 42
12/14 7:30 pm	Governor Mifflin at Lebanon	54 50
12/16 7:30 pm	Manheim Township at Lebanon	52 64
12/19 7:30 pm	Lebanon at McCaskey	68 58
12/21 7:30 pm	Warwick at Lebanon	56 79
12/29 6:00 pm	Cedar Cliff at Lebanon	50 67
12/30 6:00 pm	Camp Hill at Lebanon	51 68
1/03 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Penn Manor	74 53
1/06 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Conestoga Valley	58 45
1/07 7:00 pm	Palmyra at Lebanon	75 73
1/10 7:30 pm	Hempfield at Lebanon	51 65
1/13 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Cedar Crest	60 41
1/17 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Manheim Township	73 68
1/20 7:30 pm	McCaskey at Lebanon	50 59
1/23 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Ephrata	50 40
1/24 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Warwick	69 44
1/27 7:30 pm	Penn Manor at Lebanon	39 61
1/31 7:30 pm	Conestoga Valley at Lebanon	60 71
2/03 7:30 pm	Lebanon at Hempfield	47 50
2/04 2:30 pm	Hershey at Lebanon	54 55
2/07 7:30 pm	Cedar Crest at Lebanon	48 53
2/13 7:00 pm	Ephrata at Lebanon	50 52
2/15 7:00 pm	Lebanon Lancaster Mennonite at Cedar Crest	59 48
2/17 7:00 pm	Lancaster Catholic at Lebanon
2/24 7:00 pm	TBA at Lebanon

PIAA District Three

Class AAAAAA Power Rankings

AAAAAA	School	W	L	T	Rating	TWP	OWP
1	Reading	18-	2-	0	0.790497	0.921053	0.630930
2	Governor Mifflin	18-	4-	0	0.767302	0.877551	0.632554
3	Lebanon	18-	4-	0	0.746144	0.876494	0.586828
4	Harrisburg	16-	5-	0	0.733279	0.836518	0.607098
5	Carlisle	14-	7-	0	0.719543	0.766147	0.662582
6	Central Dauphin East	14-	8-	0	0.692541	0.736842	0.638395
7	HEMPFIELD	15-	7-	0	0.689586	0.776151	0.583784
8	Cedar Crest	15-	7-	0	0.686966	0.771368	0.583810
9	Central York	15-	7-	0	0.682047	0.752119	0.596405
10	Manheim Township	14-	8-	0	0.677018	0.737069	0.603623
11	Chambersburg Area	13-	8-	0	0.668032	0.722864	0.601015
12	Dallastown Area	14-	8-	0	0.655782	0.714894	0.583534
13	Wilson (3)	12-	9-	0	0.645385	0.665083	0.621309
14	Central Dauphin	8-	13-	0	0.566369	0.491228	0.658207
15	Warwick	8-	14-	0	0.540091	0.466019	0.630623
16	J P McCaskey	6-	14-	0	0.539183	0.414365	0.691739
17	Cumberland Valley	7-	14-	0	0.539133	0.443570	0.655933
18	Conestoga Valley	5-	17-	0	0.452162	0.297927	0.640672
19	Cedar Cliff	5-	17-	0	0.451948	0.283163	0.658241
20	Penn Manor	5-	17-	0	0.446531	0.300532	0.624974
21	Red Lion Area	4-	18-	0	0.417238	0.238342	0.635890
22	York County School Of Technology	4-	17-	0	0.335463	0.1854