Big Win, Big Loss

Posted 2/2/11

by Jody Kessler

Penn Charter hopes to have turned their basketball season around.

After suffering a number of losses during league play they got a big win versus Germantown Academy last …

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Big Win, Big Loss

Posted

by Jody Kessler

Penn Charter hopes to have turned their basketball season around.

After suffering a number of losses during league play they got a big win versus Germantown Academy last Friday. Now they have followed that up with a fairly easy 65-48 win over out-matched Valley Forge Military Academy Tuesday.

Although the win does come with some bad news: center and team leader Mike McGlinchey went down with a bad ankle injury early in the game. He left the game on crutches and did not return. A 6’8” sophomore, McGlinchey had led the team against GA, scoring 21 points. In his absence PC got a big game from point guard John Moderski, who scored 20 points. Mike Brown scored 15 as PC was in control for most of the game. Valley Forge played with only seven players. Lawrence Livers led the Trojans with 19 and William Boyer matched his uniform number with 14.

The game got off to a slow start, as it was only 9-6 after one quarter.

However the Quakers got hot in the second, outscoring VF 29-11.

Moderski led the charge, at one pint scoring eight straight points. He led the point and even grabbed some offensive rebounds, keeping possessions alive.The lead might have been more, except that they took a number of three pointers, and missed.

VF started the second half with a surge that worried PC coach Jim Phillips. The lightning quick Livers scored six points in an 8-2 run that led to a Phillips timeout with the lead down to 13. His team responded, with a run that included three straight threes to make the score 48-29.

Moderski hit back to back threes in the run. The lead was never in doubt from that point on. Besides Moderski and Brown, a number of Quakers contributed in what will have to be a theme in McGlinchey’s absence, which may be lengthy.

Sean O’Brien played well and scored seven points. John Loughery, who is the only other real size factor for PC also had seven. Vineet Krishnan was active and scored six points.

Moderski was upbeat after the game.

“It was a good win, just beat GA Friday so it’s good to get a two game win streak.We had a lot of losses in a row so it’s good.” About his scoring spurt he said, “Coach told me I had to pick it up when McGlinchey got hurt, my shots started falling. It’s good to play at home to use these baskets.” Moving forward he said, “considering we don’t have our big man, our MVP, we’ll have to play inside out, put plays in, box out, play a lot harder, get back to the fundamentals.”

Phillips was not overly pleased with the effort.

“We turn the ball over 19 times. We didn’t come out with the same sense of urgency as friday night. With youth there is opportunity, we collectively weren’t very effective. When we lost Michael early, we tried to use the rest of the game as an opportunity to have a game setting to apply some things that we need Friday night without him. I thought the kids did a little scoreboard watching. Fourteen threes in the first half, that’s something we addressed at half, settled for 20 footers.”

Livers said about Valley Forge’s effort, “I thought it was a well fought game. We came out early playing good defense on them, grabbing rebounds like we’re supposed to. We only have seven players so a lot of us had to be out there a lot, our starters got tired. I think we could have shot better, defended better, could have done a lot of things better couldn’t really put the blame on anybody. They played a better game.” About their year he said, “I think its going well. We played a lot of good competition we end up beating ourselves, our starters get tired. No one can take the blame.”

PC is now 8-12 on the year. VF is 2-4.

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