BY JEFF FALK

LITITZ – ‘Hey Dom, go get Jimmy.’

‘Hey Soren, got get Nick’.

‘Hey Raymie, go get Andrew’.

 ‘OK, now everyone go get a section championship, together’.

On Thursday night, the Cedar Crest boys’ basketball team earned another Lancaster-Lebanon Section One championship the way it wins everything, as a sharing, cohesive unit. The Falcons strutted their unity, their depth and their balance during a convincing 68-46 triumph over McCaskey, during a special playoff for the Section One crown at Warwick High School.

With nine players contributing in one way or another, the Falcons came out with a different level of intensity and never relented. Playing hard-nosed defense and executing their motion offense to perfection, Cedar Crest outscored the Red Tornado in each of the first three quarters and carried a 49-33 advantage into the final eight minutes of action.

After each side had finished the regular season with identical 14-2 records, the Falcons won their second Section One crown in as many seasons. Cedar Crest will carry a 20-2 overall mark into Monday’s opening round of the Lancaster-Lebanon League playoffs, when the defending champs will host Section Four runner-up Lancaster Catholic at ‘The Cage’.

Cedar Crest and McCaskey had split two regular season meetings, the Falcons winning 57-48 in South Lebanon on Dec. 19 and the Red Tornado winning 58-54 in Lancaster on Jan. 20. McCaskey is now 17-6 on the season.

“It’s a testament to them,” said Cedar Crest head coach Tom Smith of his deep roster. “They’re very unselfish. When we weren’t playing our best basketball, we weren’t sharing the basketball.

“Our biggest success is in our numbers,” continued Smith. “We’re unselfish. When the kids follow their assignments, we’re as good as anyone around.”

“My job is to come in for Andrew (Eberhart) and bring the intensity and just keep attacking,” said junior reserve Ramie Ferreira, who notched ten key points in the second quarter on a variety of athletic moves around the hole. “We have a lot of good players on the bench. My job is to go in there and just show what the bench can do.

“When we were kids, we settled into our positions,” added Ferreira. “We don’t argue about our positions because we know what our jobs are. We never want to play selfish.”

After establishing itself as the alpha dog in the first half, Cedar Crest put McCaskey away in the third quarter.

Up six, the Falcons broke off a 12-4 run that pushed their lead to 43-29. Eberhart set it off with a couple of foul shots, Josh Bucher kept the momentum going with a lay-in and a trifecta and Nick Miller finished it off with a three-pointer and an inside move.

“I knew we were ready when we got on the bus today,” said Smith. “They (his players) were determined. We had a great practice yesterday. We had to kick them out of the gym. They were determined and focused.

“Tonight was one of our better games,” Smith continued. “They (his players) really dug in. Our biggest thing was tempo. I told them, ‘Hey, let’s play. Let’s get from A to B as fast as we can, and make them (the Red Tornado) defend the whole time.'”

“At halftime, we realized we were in this position before,” said Ferreira. “We had the lead in the first half and let it slip away. We just had to play harder.

“Tuesday was our Senior Night,” continued Ferreira. “Coach explained that this is our last year together. Now is the time to step it up a notch, not just for ourselves, but for our brothers.”

During the second quarter, Ferriera didn’t provide a spark off the bench as much as he kept the CC flow going.

He tallied eight straight Falcon points to help his team to a 23-17 advantage. Then with four seconds left on the first-half clock, Ferrierra nailed a jumper that sent Cedar Crest to the locker room with a 31-23 lead.

“It was huge,” said Smith of Ferriera’s contribution. “The game was close, back and forth. But Ramie came in played well defensively, grabbed some rebounds, got some touches underneath the basket and started us on a run. He finished well around the basket.

“We executed our offense well. Very well,” Smith added. “I pulled this offense from (former Annville-Cleona boys’ coach) Mark Linebaugh four years ago. I saw him use it against McCaskey, and if you want to win Section One, you’ve got to beat McCaskey.”

“When I went into the game, I went in there with emotion,” said Ferriera. “It was more emotion than physical. It was personal.

“Honestly, I don’t really rate myself,” Ferriera continued. “I played the way Coach wanted me to play. I played the same way the whole team played.”

Ferriera’s total of 14 points was a perfect complement to Bucher’s game-high 16 points, Miller’s 13 and Jimmy Kern’s seven assists. The Falcons outscored the Red Tornado 12-3 from downtown and took advantage of McCaksey’s 11-for-24 free throwing.

“That was the game plan,” said Smith of junior Evan Horn’s defensive effort on McCaskey star Kobe Gantz. “If you’re going to stop McCaskey, you’ve got to stop Kobe. He’s a great player, but we put our best on him. Evan has been guarding him for the last three years. They took pride in shutting him down.

“I think the experience of this group has helped us all season,” continued Smith. “They’ve played in big games like this. It definitely helps them prepare. Teams typically like to sag on our guards. But if we get the lead, they have to come out on us and we feel like we have an advantage.”

“It’s just excitement right now,” said Ferriera. “I thought this year was going to be the same as last year. It was the same result, but a different atmosphere. We played looser, because we should’ve beaten McCaskey at their place. It gave us more emotion. We had more to lose than to gain.”

The Falcons’ lead reached 64-44 with 3:25 to go, courtesy of two charity tosses from Miller and Bucher’s second trey of the evening.

“Traditionally, McCaskey owns the Lancaster-Lebanon League,” said Smith. “To win back-to-back Section One titles is rewarding. This is their goal. This is goal number one.”

Cedar Crest used an 8-1 spurt to erase an early 7-5 deficit – Bucher drained a jumper, Ferriera converted a reverse lay-in, Horn scored on a drive down the lane and Soren Frost maneuvered inside for a deuce. And when Miller knocked down a ‘J’ to open the second stanza, Cedar Crest suddenly had a 15-8 margin.

“Before the game, we had a list of goals,” said Ferriera. “This year we want to win the section, win the league and win districts. This is just one of many goals.”

“We lost one game at home over the last two years,” said Smith of the impending next-to-last game of the season at ‘The Cage’. “It’s always nice to play at home.”

 Cedar Crest (68)

McCaskey (46)

• Team	1	2	3	4	Final
  Cedar Crest	13	18	18	19	68
  McCaskey	8	15	10	13	46

Lancaster-Lebanon League

 Final Section One Standings

TEAM	LEAGUE	OVERALL
Cedar Crest	14-2	19-2
McCaskey	14-2	17-5
Hempfield	12-4	15-7
Warwick	11-5	14-8
Manheim Twp.	7-9	8-13
Penn Manor	3-13	5-17

Cedar Crest 2014-15 Results

DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	RESULT
12/05	@Palmyra	6:30 PM	W 62-44
12/06	CD East	5:00 PM	W 70-60
12/10	@Central York	7:30 PM	W 50-48
12/12 *	@Solanco	7:30 PM	W 65-27
12/15 *	Ephrata	7:30 PM	W 68-53
12/17 *	@Conestoga Valley	7:30 PM	W 74-45
12/19 *	McCaskey	7:30 PM	W 57-48
12/23 *	@Hempfield	7:30 PM	W 46-43
12/29 #	Camp Hill	7:30 PM	W 80-61
12/30 #	Hershey	7:30 PM	W 53-42
01/02 *	@Manheim Twp.	7:30 PM	W 58-56
01/06 *	Warwick	7:30 PM	W 55-33
01/09 *	@Penn Manor	7:30 PM	W 45-44
01/12 *	Garden Spot	7:30 PM	W 66-23
01/14 *	@Elizabethtown	7:30 PM	W 67-52
01/16 *	Lebanon	7:30 PM	W 59-42
01/20 *	@McCaskey	7:30 PM	L 54-58
01/22 *	Hempfield	7:30 PM	W 58-54
01/27 *	Manheim Twp.	7:30 PM	W 52-38
01/30 *	@Warwick	7:30 PM	L 57-60
02/03 *	Penn Manor	7:30 PM	W 72-43
02/05	@McCaskey	8:00 PM	W 68-46

 District Three

 Class AAAA Power Rankings

AAAA School W L T Rating

1 Cedar Crest 19- 2- 0 0.812053

2 William Penn 18- 4- 0 0.803140

3 Cedar Cliff 19- 2- 0 0.801058 0.92

4 J P McCaskey 17- 5- 0 0.789498

5 Reading 18- 4- 0 0.775497

6 Central York 16- 6- 0 0.759726

7 Northeastern 20- 2- 0 0.759368

8 Harrisburg 16- 6- 0 0.750666

9 Hempfield 15- 7- 0 0.746240

10 Carlisle 15- 6- 0 0.733159

11 Exeter Township 17- 5- 0 0.730953

12 Warwick 14- 8- 0 0.715179

13 Cumberland Valley 14- 8- 0 0.709017

14 Central Dauphin East 13- 8- 0 0.702714

15 Red Lion Area 13- 8- 0 0.701321

16 Shippensburg Area 16- 5- 0 0.695850

17 Hershey 12- 9- 0 0.682527

18 Spring Grove Area 13- 8- 0 0.671906

19 Lebanon 13- 8- 0 0.666002

20 Governor Mifflin 12- 10- 0 0.653131

21 Dallastown Area 12- 10- 0 0.649754

22 Waynesboro Area 13- 8- 0 0.640976

23 Conestoga Valley 12- 10- 0 0.638597

24 Lower Dauphin 11- 11- 0 0.632159

25 Mechanicsburg Area 10- 12- 0 0.623132

26 Elizabethtown Area 11- 11- 0 0.618394

27 Manheim Township 8- 13- 0 0.604277

28 Central Dauphin 8- 12- 0 0.600763

29 Wilson Senior 9- 13- 0 0.600608

30 Chambersburg Area 7- 14- 0 0.572989

31 Greencastle Antrim 8- 13- 0 0.558043

32 South Western 6- 15- 0 0.519425

33 Northern York 7- 14- 0 0.496782

34 Penn Manor 5- 17- 0 0.496236

35 Solanco 7- 15- 0 0.492579 0

36 Red Land 5- 17- 0 0.479515

37 Ephrata Area 4- 18- 0 0.441624

38 New Oxford 4- 18- 0 0.438191

39 Muhlenberg 3- 19- 0 0.396215

40 Garden Spot 3- 18- 0 0.395114

41 York County School Of Technology 4- 18- 0 0.316959

42 Daniel Boone 1- 21- 0 0.306700