Penn Charter basketball off to strong start

Posted 12/15/15

Penn Charter's Adam Holland rises above a sea of Lansdale Catholic defenders. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) by Jonathan Vander Lugt With four games in the books, Penn Charter's got to be pretty …

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Penn Charter basketball off to strong start

Posted
Penn Charter's Adam Holland rises above a sea of Lansdale Catholic defenders. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt) Penn Charter's Adam Holland rises above a sea of Lansdale Catholic defenders. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

With four games in the books, Penn Charter's got to be pretty pleased with where it's headed.

Sure, there are some things to work on. Ball control, pace and overall consistency needed work during their 57-37 blowout win over Lansdale Catholic Friday night, but when you can struggle and still hang a 20-point win on a team, it's not the worst situation in the world.

Especially considering the fact that the Quakers now have four wins—their entire total from last season—less than two weeks into December.

“It feels good to finally be on a winning track,” said Harrison Williams, one of the team's seniors.

Rest assured, Williams and his Quaker teammates have a long way to go, but one can't fault him for being happy to have equaled last season's win total so soon. This week they've got a tilt with Archbishop Ryan on Tuesday before heading to Germantown Academy over the weekend for GA's Make-A-Wish Tournament.

“Yeah, it's only game four so we're still working some things out,” Williams said. “We're not going to be perfect, but we're getting better—that's all we want.”

That said, it was clear from the tip on Friday night that Penn Charter was the better team. The Quakers outpaced LC to the tune of a 15-6 lead by the end of the first quarter, getting contributions from six players in the frame.

And that was without points from either of the team's Williams—the aforementioned Harrison, as well as his sophomore teammate Mason—the team's top two scorers on the night.

“We've been going 10 or 11 deep in every game and getting a variety of different contributions from different people,” said coach Jim Phillips.

“We're still trying to figure it out,” Phillips said. “I don't know that we have a starting five. We have a group of kids that started today, a group that started our first game, the group that started our second game, which is also different than who started the third game.”

Harrison and Mason are likely mainstays in the team's primary lineup, as the former finished with 11 points and the latter led the squad with 16.

The pair turned it on in the second quarter when they combined for 18 of the team's 19 second-quarter points, putting PC up 34-18 at the half. They cooled down for the remainder of the game, happily letting the rest of the team pick up the scoring slack.

“Our teammates can all score and there aren't any drop-offs,” Mason said. “If they get going, then it takes the pressure off of us.”

“We played team basketball,” Harrison chimed in. “I think Mason was our leading scorer, but not by much. We're sharing the ball, and no one's trying to 'get theirs.' We don't have a lot of selfish dudes on this team.”

Phillips agreed.

“To this point, we have not seen any bad body language about 'not getting yours,'” he said, nearly echoing his forward verbatim. “We've really bought into the fact that we don't have any superstars, so we're making this collective group effort that will hopefully help us maximize our potential, whatever it is.”

That potential is exactly what they're trying to figure out. The team's an odd one—there isn't a clear go-to, and a lot of its players are coming in having dedicated their time to other sports in the fall, so they've got a bit of a learning curve they're working through.

“We're starting to get our basketball legs under us,” Phillips said. “They've been a really coachable group to this point … We're trying to put different pieces together to see what might click, and taking a little bit of risk to figure out how to put the puzzle together before league play.

“To be 4-0 and doing a lot of that kind of tinkering is a nice place to be. I don't think we have figured out what we're capable of. It's still a work in progress. I think we'll become a little more of a polished product as we figure things out.”

“Hopefully,” Phillips concluded, with a wry chuckle.

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