by Ed Morrone

Jake Timby and Nix Varano admired each other’s sharpshooting abilities long before they were La Salle College High School basketball teammates.

The pair each grew up in Chalfont, about a 20-minute drive north from La Salle’s campus in Wyndmoor. Timby is two years older than Varano, but the two definitely gravitated toward one another once they realized they could both shoot a basketball from just about anywhere on the court.

“I remember going all the way back to third grade, people would say, ‘It’s Timby time’ on the court,” Varano said. “We’d play in three-on-three tournaments, and people would be obsessed with watching him play. I thought it was pretty cool.”

“He’s younger than me, but I’d always watch him play,” Timby added. “We both went to Unami Middle School (in Chalfont) and I saw him at the gym all the time working out with his dad. I could tell right away that he was a shooter.”

During Sunday afternoon’s Catholic League home game against Archbishop Carroll, Timby and Varano showed just how deadly they can be from long range. Timby, a senior guard, connected on four three-pointers, including three in the third quarter, for 12 points. Not to be outdone, Varano, a sophomore reserve guard for the Explorers, buried five treys en route to 17 confident points. La Salle ended up losing the game to a more talented Carroll team, 68-64, but the swishing ability of Timby and Varano kept La Salle in the contest from wire to wire.

The Explorers hit 13 three-pointers in the game, with nine coming off the fingertips of Timby and Varano (senior Mike DiPietro hit three, while sophomore Sam Brown’s half court heave at the end of the game found the net). A year removed from going 26-4 overall and 12-2 in the Catholic League, La Salle is scuffling a bit in 2019-20 following the graduation of many talented players now playing in college. This season, the Explorers are 10-9 and 3-8 as they continue to retool in hopes of reaching the playoffs with a strong finish.

Aside from a blowout loss to Neumann-Goretti, La Salle has been in almost every league contest, in large part due to the knockdown shooting of Timby and Varano, who continue to become big fans of each other’s crafts.

“When the defense draws in on me tight, he’s always there to make shots when we need him to,” Timby said of Varano. “He’s a good spot up shooter when defensive attention is drawn to other players. Nix is a great spark plug off the bench.”

Varano played on La Salle’s freshman team last year, but you’d never know it after witnessing the poise and coolness he exhibits in releasing big-time varsity shots.

“At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t shooting too well,” Varano said. “But everyone kept telling me, ‘Keep shooting, keep shooting,’ even when I miss. That really helps, having my teammates encouraging me to keep shooting the ball.

“Jake and I complement each other a lot. He’s the best shooter I’ve ever played with, one of the best in La Salle history. He’s so consistent, even on last year’s team with all those Division-I guys we had, I remember him being a great shooter and wanting to be like that myself. It’s fun to play with guys who can shoot just as good or better than you.”

And for the record, Varano wasn’t flying high following his big money performance from deep. The final scoreboard said La Salle lost, so there was no celebrating on this day. The sophomore may be young, but he understands the bottom line of competition.

“I just want to win, so I don’t really care if I have zero points,” he said. “If I have 20 points and we lose, I don’t care at all. I just want to win.”

La Salle has five seniors on its roster, three of whom are major components of this year’s team (Timby, DiPietro and Shane Holland all saw big minutes on Sunday), so Varano will continue to have a big role within the program as it moves toward a future without Timby.

“I definitely see Nix as the next leader of this team,” Timby said. “He’s a sophomore and already scoring big points. He’s going to help turn this program around, because we’re struggling a little bit right now. We’re tough players, we just have to pay more attention to detail. Because our competition is so strong, you have to essentially be perfect to compete with them. We give all these teams a good run.”

Despite the loss, Varano’s confidence is soaring, and he believes the Explorers will be in the postseason picture if they can get hot down the stretch and turn a couple of these close losses into wins.

“I feel like we can compete with anyone in this league,” Varano said. “We lost to McDevitt by three, we could have won the Bonner game … almost everyone except Neumann we were right there with. If we can get better at finishing out these games, I think we can make the playoffs. We’re playing against great teams, so every night we have to be so locked in.”