Panthers knock off Marian

You wouldn’t have expected anything less.

Bitter rivals Marian and Panther Valley hooked up in a key Schuylkill Division 3 contest Tuesday night.

And in a raucous, physical basketball game, the Panthers scored five points in the final seconds to pull out a thrilling 68-63 victory.

With Panther Valley sporting a spotless 3-0 league record, and facing its biggest test since 1986, this baby was going to be a true indicator.

It was fitting, then, that the Panthers leading scorer — Rene Figueroa — would be at the foul line in a tied game with 4.1 seconds to play and needing to make at least one shot.

So when Marian coach John Patton called two timeouts to try and ice the 5-8 junior guard, it made for good theater.

“I told the team ‘when Rene makes these two shots, we’ve got to get back and play defense,’” said PV head coach Pat Crampsie.

Prophetic, indeed, was Crampsie.

The first shot swirled some before falling through, but the second — as legendary radio announcer Les Keiter coined — “tickled the twine.” To complete the process, the Panthers’ Erick Marcharro stole the inbounds pass, flicked it back to Figueroa, who fittingly swished in a triple.

Game, set, and match to Panther Valley.

“This was big, no way to say it,” said Crampsie. “We’ve got a lot of heart, we play as a team, and we’ve been getting better and better each game.”

The win puts the controls in the hands of the Panthers from here on in; they will be the hunted, and Crampsie loves that sound.

“It feels good, we like being in this position,” he said.

But his team had to overcome a sensational, nearly heroic effort from Marian’s 6-1 sophomore shooting machine Tyler Fritz, who nearly equaled Figueroa with 26 points.

“What a great athlete … he is unbelievable the way he can shoot,” praised Campsie.

Panther Valley did everything to slow down Fritz, from a box defense, to a trap, to shoving him from one end of the floor to the other.

“Yeah it got a little (physical),” said Patton. “But that’s the way things are. We’re not that big, and we had problems with (their) length.”

Rangy swingman Allen Perez finished with 14 of PV’s 47 rebounds, 13 more than the Colts could muster.

The Panthers looked crisp and sharp in jumping out to a 15-11 lead. They got a huge lift from reserve Donnie Distler, who knocked down nine points, yanked in seven rebounds and hit a putback off a Figueroa miss to extend the margin to 21-11.

Marian, however, stormed back behind Noah Stauffer, Brendon Sabulsky and Dante Agosti to close the gap to 23-21 — all of that with Fritz in foul trouble and sitting on the bench.

Agosti was hot in the third quarter as he drained seven points to help Marian gain a 42-41 advantage. Down the stretch, the Colts twice built five-point leads — the last at 55-50 — on a pair of Fritz foul conversions with 3:26 to play.

A five-point PV run, highlighted by a Trey Turner trey, tied the score, but Fritz twice put his team ahead — the last at 63-61. Panther Valley then used its long bodies to forge a tie as Distler picked off three offensive rebounds, before Tristan Blasko tied it 63-63 with 15 seconds to play.

Marian couldn’t hold on, turning the ball over and setting the stage for Figueroa to put his team on top for keeps.

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP …Panther Valley took a whopping 69 shots and made 27; Marian went 23-54 from the floor.

COLTS GRAB JV WIN … Marian was a 66-47 winner in the opener, behind 19 points from Brandon Sabulsky. Teammate Chris Latoff scored 18 and Nick Goff sank 15. Adam Depew had 15 points and Tommy Edwards finished with 14 for the Panthers.

PANTHER VALLEY

Figueroa 10-7-10-29, Turner 4-0-0-11, Perez 5-0-0-10, Distler 4-1-2-9, Blasko 2-1-2-5, Marcharro 2-0-0-4, Sanchez 0-0-0-0, Edwards 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 27-9-14-68.

MARIAN

Fritz 7-7-11-26, Agosti 5-0-1-11, Sabulsky 5-0-0-10, Stauffer 2-4-4-8, Ritsick 1-2-3-4, Goff 2-0-0-4. TOTALS: 23-13-19-63.

Panther Vy. 15 8 18 27 - 68

Marian 11 10 21 21 - 63

Three-pointers: PV - Turner 3, Figueroa 2; Marian - Fritz 3, Agosti 1.