Panthers advance to D-11 finals

POTTSVILLE – Pat Crampsie didn’t need to be reminded of the last time the Panther Valley boys basketball team brought home a district title.

“It’s been a long time,” said Crampsie. “The last one was 1986. We look at that banner every day in practice. We talk about it all the time.”

On Tuesday night, Crampsie’s Panthers put themselves in a position to end their championship drought.

Panther Valley turned back Schuylkill League rival Marian 52-49 in the District 11 Class 2A semifinals at Martz Hall to punch its ticket to Friday’s title game.

With the victory, the Panthers also clinched their spot in the state tournament. Panther Valley will play top seed Moravian Academy Friday at 6 p.m. at Freedom for the 2A title.

“It means everything,” said Crampsie. “Coming into the year, we had three big goals: we wanted to win our division, we wanted a berth in the state tournament and we wanted to hang a banner.

“We have two of them down, and we’ve got the big one on Friday. We’re thrilled for this opportunity.”

While the big stage might be new for these Panthers (16-7), it was never too big. The Schuylkill League Division 3 champions got a game-high 19 points from sophomore Erick Marcharro – including four critical free throws in the final 15 seconds to seal the win.

“Without Erick Marcharro, we don’t win that game,” said Crampsie. “He was clutch throughout the game, knocking down some threes when they were overplaying other guys. On top of that, his big free throws down the stretch, getting the ball against their pressure down toward the end.

“All the credit to him. He’s just a sophomore, and he did an unbelievable job.”

Marcharro had nine of his points in the fourth quarter, including five in a row to cap an 8-0 run that pushed No. 2 seed Panther Valley’s lead to 47-38 with under 2:30 to play.

“I was missing a couple of my shots in the beginning of the game,” said Marcharro. “But they were leaving me open, so I had to start knocking them down. And when I started knocking them down, I was feeling it, so I kept shooting.”

Marian (12-10) answered with a 9-1 stretch, closing to within one point on two occasions at 48-47 with 33.6 seconds to play, and 50-49 with 10.1 seconds remaining. But both times, Marcharro answered at the other end.

The Colts held Panther Valley’s leading scorer, Rene Figueroa, to 11 points. But the Panthers got production from other spots in the lineup, as Tristan Blasko and Allen Perez scored 10 points apiece.

“We had a lot of balance, which was fantastic,” said Crampsie. “I thought we were getting some good looks in the first half, they just weren’t dropping. We wanted to make sure that we stuck with it, kept giving our guys a chance to knock down some shots.”

Marian kept Panther Valley scoreless for nearly the first six minutes of the game and led 11-4 at the end of the first period. The Panthers missed all five three-pointers in the opening quarter.

Panther Valley countered with an 11-0 run to start the second quarter and led 23-19 at halftime.

The third-seeded Colts tied it at 37-37 on a three from Chris Ritsick (nine points) to start the fourth quarter.

Free throws from Tyler Fritz (eight points) with 33.6 second left and Noah Stauffer (13 points) with 11.5 seconds remaining made it a one-point game before Marcharro answered with foul shots of his own to secure the win.

Jared Maylath added 10 points for Marian.

SWEEP … The victory moved Panther Valley to 3-0 against the Colts this season. The Panthers won the previous meetings, 68-63 (Jan. 9) and 90-65 (Feb. 9). “That was huge for us, especially beating Marian three times. They’re a really good ball team. So we’re definitely super excited, and we know the competition we can hang with. But also, we know what we have to bring to the table. The level of hustle and grit we have to bring to the table,” said Blasko.

SCOREBOARD WATCHING … Moravian Academy beat No. 4 seed Schuylkill Haven 65-50 in the other semifinal on Tuesday.

MARIAN

Stauffer 4-5-6-13, Fritz 2-2-2-8, Agosti 1-2-3-4, Maylath 3-4-6-10, Ritsick 2-1-2-9, McLaughlin 0-0-0-0, Sabulsky 1-0-0-2, Goff 1-1-2-3. TOTALS: 15-15-21-49.

PANTHER VALLEY

Marcharro 6-4-4-19, Stilitino 0-0-0-0, Turner 0-0-0-0, Figueroa 3-5-5-11, Distler 0-0-0-0, White 0-0-0-0, Blasko 4-2-3-10, Perez 4-2-4-10, Sanchez 1-0-1-2. TOTALS: 18-13-17-52.

Marian 11 8 15 15 - 49

Panther Vy. 4 19 14 15 - 52

Three-pointers: Marian – Fritz 2, Ritsick 2. Panther Valley – Marcharro 3.