SATURDAY'S RECAP FROM KEITH GROLLER

From Keith Groller

The Lehigh Valley Conference fared well on Saturday in District 11 boys quarterfinal round action.

Central Catholic whipped Wilson in 3A and both Whitehall and Nazareth posted solid victories over pretty good Mountain Valley Conference teams in 4A.

The one exception to the LVC's good day was Pocono Mountain East thrashing Freedom. Joe Stellato has to be disappointed with his team's 89-59 loss. He sounded so enthused on the radio on Saturday morning. The Cardinals are very talented, and very hungry. Coach Patrick Heaton always has his team playing with a chip on its shoulder, but still... a 30-point loss? Didn't see that coming.

The Cardinals are the last MVC team remaining and the last hope of ending a drought for current MVC members in district boys competition. Stroudsburg was the last current MVC team to win gold in 1999.

Parkland won district titles in 2000 and 2001 while members of the MVC, but somehow I don't think the MVC really counts those two.

Pocono East can very well win it all this year. They have been solid since summer.

But for now, we've got two great 4A matchups on Wednesday night at Freedom to spotlight. Pocono East vs. Whitehall in Game 1 and Liberty vs. Nazareth in Game 2. And this time Anthony Gonzalez is playing.

We've got a lot of quotes on Liberty and Nazareth about Saturday's games and looking ahead to the semis. We can share them here since there was no room in print.

From Nazareth coach Joe Arndt....

On Liberty: "It's going to be a tough battle against Liberty, but our kids are focused. We knew it last week already that Anthony Gonzalez was going to be back. We just have to be ready and play our style of game. He gives them a different look. He bumps Jarrod West outside. Anthony sees the court so well and makes things happen for them. He's the leader of their group, just like Danny Wilk is the leader of our group."

Arndt on Danny Wilk....

"We knew we wanted to go inside against East Stroudsburg North. We looked to run and got good penetration. Danny's our leader and makes us go. He's the driver of this bus."

(Wilk got the ball inside to Karl Keglovits, right, who had a big night against ES North).



Wilk on beating ES North by beating them down the floor....

"They wanted to get up and down the court and outrebound us. But we outrebounded them and got our running game going. Our game is to play defense, get the rebound, get it down there on the break and pass it around. People who think they're just going to run all over us are going to be surprised because that's what we like to do."

Anthony Gonzalez on playing Nazareth for the first time....

"We lost to them twice and I didn't play either time, so I definitely want to get a win over them. I definitely wanted to be out there against Nazareth [in the LVC semis]. When you see your guys down, you definitely want to pick them back up and do whatever you can do to help them. That was a tough loss. Money [Darrun Hilliard] took it hard. He lives and dies with each game. As a senior captain, I was trying to help

him out as much I could."

What does the University of Pittsburgh say about you playing basketball?

"They gave me the OK to play again. It was all up to them."

Liberty coach Chad Landis on how much Gonzalez (surrounded by four Allen players on the right) wanted to come back....

"If he didn't want to come back, all he had to do was get the doctor to say no. I think the Nazareth loss ripped his heart out, too. We self-imploded at the end of that one and he didn't like to see that. He's been with us for four years. Yes, he has played a lot of big football games, but he has also played in more big basketball games than anyone in Liberty history. He wanted to come back and made the commitment to do all the work in rehab and we jumped through all of the necessary hoops to make it happen."

What Gonzalez means to Liberty....

Landis said, "His return puts a smile on my face, I know that. Now we're back to that team we had early in the year that I loved. He wills us to wins. Now, I know he can't do that again just yet. But he gives us some options, some depth. He gives us defense, some rebounding. We are pretty formidable when we have all of our guys on the floor. There was no cat being left out of the bag with Ant. He wasn't cleared to return until Tuesday night and we didn't want to play him on Wednesday [against Bangor] without practicing. So, he practiced with us Thursday and Friday. He looked pretty good, so we thought we might as well get him out there. We played a zone tonight because we thought it would be effective against Allen and it also allowed us to rest him in the back a little bit more and extend his minutes."

Will Gonzalez be the difference against Nazareth?

"He helps us," Landis said. "He makes us better. He'll give us a little lift. But if the five guys we have on the floor aren't playing as hard as their five guys, it doesn't matter who our five guys are. We have to play as a group better than we did the last two times we played them. They just flat-out outplayed us in those last two games."

From Keith Groller