BY JEFF FALK

 ROBESONIA – The season is at the top of the stretch, and the Northern Lebanon boys’ basketball team’s playoff life hangs in the balance. The Vikings may or may not qualify for the postseason.

 Adding to that ambiguity is the question of whether or not prolonging the season will define its success.

 On Saturday afternoon, Northern Lebanon’s postseason hopes took a hit, with a 54-29 non-league road setback at Conrad Weiser. The Vikings never got out of the gate, falling behind by double-digits in the first quarter, and never mounting a charge.

 The contest was the second in 17 hours for Northern Lebanon and it came on the heels of Friday night’s 48-43 home victory over Donegal, which snapped a five-game losing skein. 

 With seven regular-season contests remaining, the Vikings are now 5-10 overall. Northern Lebanon was seeded 15th in the latest District Three Class AAAA power rankings.

 Now winners of seven its last ten games, Conrad Weiser moved to 8-8 overall.

 “Class AAAA probably has an opening or two at the nine- or ten-seed,” said Northern Lebanon head coach Chris George. “The tough thing for us is that we had three games we were leading or tied in the last three minutes, and we didn’t get them. We’ve been off and on in close games. Mathematically, we’re still alive. We’ve got six potentially win-able games left. We’ve got to get four out of six to have a shot. Four could get us to ten (seed). Right now, we’re not talking too much about it. We’ve just got to play better.

 “I’m not really focused on results,” continued George. “I’m focused on how we do it. Districts to me isn’t going to matter with this team. At the beginning of the season, we knew it was going to be tough. When we were hanging around .500, we started focusing on results a little bit. When you focus on the finish line, you forget about the next step. We’ve been letting our eyes drop a little bit and getting tripped up a little bit. We’ve got seven more games, and it’s a great chance for the kids to play hard and play better.”

 To say that the Vikings got off to a sluggish start would be kind. Northern Lebanon experienced difficulties turning the ball over and making shots against the Scouts’ trapping zone defense.

 Conrad Weiser tallied the first 15 points of the game, all on shots within three feet of the basket. It took the Vikings all of the first 7:56 to score, a streak that was broken by Peyton Wolfe’s three-pointer near the end of the first stanza.

 Northern Lebanon was guilty of ten first-quarter turnovers.

 “Last night’s (Friday) win over Donegal was big,” said George. “We really played sloppy, but we got a win – which is opposite of what we’ve been doing. Last night we finally got a win, but it was an odd feeling. We knew this was going to be a tall task, going back-to-back. Win or lose, we said, ‘Let’s improve off of last night and play with a little more focus.’ We just didn’t show up. At some point, it’s on us as coaches.”

 The Scouts also ran off the first eight points of the second quarter, to extend their lead to 23-3. That tide was stemmed by an Ethan Borcky three-point-field goal and Eyan Margut’s steal and lay-up, but the half ended with the home team ahead 28-8.

 “They ran a little trap on us,” said George. “Their length gave us trouble. We weren’t strong with the ball, and our margin for error is much smaller than a lot of teams. When we’re just a little off, things can look real bad.

 “They’re (the Scouts) very athletic, long and bigger than us,” added George. “Our game is to take care of  the ball, knock down shots and play good defense. We didn’t take care of the ball.”

 On four three-point field goals, Borcky led Northern Lebanon in scoring with a dozen points. As a matter of fact, seven of the Vikings’ ten total field goals came from three-point land.

 But on two-point field goals, Northern Lebanon was outscored 44-6.

 “A good word is ‘snow-balled’,” said George. “Two mistakes turned into three mistakes, and four. These are the kinds of things young kids do. We really haven’t done that much of it this season, but we got back to it today.”

 Northern Lebanon certainly played much better in the second half, especially offensively, but never seriously threatend Conrad Weiser’s lead.

 A trey by Borcky late in the third quarter made it a 41-14 game. But the Scouts tallied the last basket of the period and the first bucket of the final quarter to push their advantage to 45-17.

 “It was early,” said George of the start of his team’s day. “We had a battle last night. We went to bed, and we had to be back in the gym and had a walk-through at nine o’clock. The bus left (NLHS) at 9:30 a.m. and the JV game started at 11. It was definitely a quick turnaround, but that’s not an excuse.”

To purchase images in this article email jkfalk2005@yahoo.com, or to view more go to https://lebanonsportsbuzz.com/photo-gallery/.

 2018-19 Northern Lebanon Boys’ Basketball Results

 

 PIAA District Three

 Class AAAA Power Rankings

 

AAAA	School	W	L	T	Rating	TWP	OWP	TWPW	OWPW	TWPL	OWPL
1	Bishop McDevitt	13-	2-	0	0.726160	0.892744	0.522556	14.2	162.8	1.7	148.7
2	Berks Catholic School	11-	2-	0	0.715800	0.853480	0.547525	11.7	167.1	2.0	138.1
3	Eastern York	13-	3-	0	0.711804	0.847305	0.546190	14.2	178.9	2.6	148.6
4	Littlestown	16-	0-	0	0.709361	1.000000	0.354135	15.7	116.9	0.0	213.2
5	Lancaster Catholic	11-	6-	0	0.627863	0.689150	0.552957	11.8	185.6	5.3	150.1
6	Octorara Area	9-	6-	0	0.580547	0.661238	0.481924	10.2	157.3	5.2	169.1
7	Susquehanna Township	8-	7-	0	0.580062	0.584192	0.575013	8.5	169.6	6.1	125.4
8	Fleetwood	9-	5-	0	0.572790	0.663121	0.462386	9.4	132.2	4.8	153.7
9	Eastern Lebanon County	9-	7-	0	0.563226	0.604294	0.513032	9.9	171.3	6.5	162.6
10	Wyomissing	9-	7-	0	0.552232	0.603226	0.489907	9.4	157.8	6.2	164.3
11	Schuylkill Valley	8-	7-	0	0.547022	0.549153	0.544417	8.1	167.0	6.7	139.8
12	West Perry	9-	6-	0	0.534367	0.596091	0.458926	9.2	137.2	6.2	161.7
13	Boiling Springs	5-	10-	0	0.505054	0.379061	0.659044	5.3	207.5	8.6	107.4
14	Kennard Dale	6-	9-	0	0.457161	0.432056	0.487845	6.2	132.5	8.2	139.1
15	Northern Lebanon	5-	10-	0	0.435666	0.358885	0.529509	5.2	175.4	9.2	155.9
16	Susquehannock	4-	11-	0	0.431602	0.280443	0.616351	3.8	198.7	9.8	123.7
17	James Buchanan	3-	10-	0	0.418026	0.266376	0.603376	3.1	180.5	8.4	118.7
18	East Pennsboro Area	4-	11-	0	0.399215	0.274914	0.551139	4.0	160.9	10.6	131.0
19	Bermudian Springs	5-	11-	0	0.390111	0.313793	0.483387	4.6	156.4	10.0	167.2
20	Middletown Area	1-	13-	0	0.327354	0.078947	0.630962	1.1	188.5	12.3	110.3
21	Hamburg Area	1-	14-	0	0.276750	0.064846	0.535742	1.0	171.3	13.7	148.4