http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/
FROM KEITH GROLLER
We now, thankfully, have a three-day break between high school basketball tournaments.
For a preview of the SportsFest basketball tournament, watch Service Electric TV2 at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
But before we turn the page and look ahead, let's look back at the Stellar tournament. Even though there was not a local team in the championship game, there were several Lehigh Valley-area teams that played well, and some won enough to stay around deep into Sunday.
To me, the six biggest local winners were:
Allen
Coming off last season, no one knew what to expect this summer from the Canaries. But it has been a long time, maybe since the District 11 title win in 2011, that I've seen Doug Snyder so happy. He really likes these kids and really was pleased with how they competed all weekend.
After routing the Nazareth JVs and Catasauqua for its first two wins, Allen lost an overtime thriller to eventual champion Wilson West Lawn before the rain came on Saturday night.
The Canaries bounced back with four wins on Sunday before losing to Central Catholic 58-47 in the quarterfinals.
"It was a wonderful weekend," Snyder said. "I said to my wife when I left the house at 7 o'clock this morning that I expected to be home around 10 to cut the grass. But we ended up playing five games and were here all day. And remember, the one loss we had on Saturday was to Wilson and they wound up beating Central and winning the tournament.
"We made it to the final six. The big names in our league are still Parkland, Central Catholic and Liberty, too, but we had a wonderful run. We have chemistry, good shooting and ballhandling. We're not overly big, but we have very solid guard play."
He was even pleased with the effort against CCHS.
"We had three or four guys who had cramps and I just kept them out," he said. "Central was a little more rested than us."
A couple more things about Allen. When listing new coaches the other day, I forgot to write that Randy Atiyeh is the new freshman coach. He replaces Justin Ruppelli, who moved up to JV coach.
Also, Dave Peters is a Pocono Mountain graduate who played for Brad Pensyl, not Bron Holland. When Peters was a Cardinal, there was just one PM school. He later was an assistant coach with Holland at PM East, however.
Bethlehem Catholic
The Golden Hawks created a lot of excitement by being one of the last two local teams undefeated entering play on Sunday. Among Becahi's wins in its 3-0 tourney start was an impressive 60-48 victory over city rival Liberty.
Things didn't go as well on Sunday with the Golden Hawks losing to CCHS in front of a large crowd on Court 1 and then were taken out by Allen.
Still, just getting to Sunday was a step forward for Mike Frew's program and with Freddie Simmons emerging as one of the more dynamic offensive players in the LVC, Becahi just might challenge its Bethlehem neighbors and Easton in the LVC East next winter.
Bangor
The defending Colonial League champion Slaters won three games before being ousted by Parkland at 11 a.m. on Sunday. Bangor graduated an all-area player in Alex Colton, but have enough good kids coming back to stay among the elite in the Colonial League. And it's looking like rising senior Jeremy Ringland is headed for a big year.
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