Germantown Academy seeks a second star in up-and-down slate

Posted 12/17/18

Germantown Academy's Jordan Longino rises over Kenneth Rodriguez in the Pats 56-55 loss to George School on Friday night. The Patriots have lived and died by Longino's play – they're 3-0 when he …

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Germantown Academy seeks a second star in up-and-down slate

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Germantown Academy's Jordan Longino rises over Kenneth Rodriguez in the Pats 56-55 loss to George School on Friday night. The Patriots have lived and died by Longino's play – they're 3-0 when he scores at least 27, and 1-3 when he doesn't. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)[/caption]

by Jonathan Vander Lugt

If nothing else, Germantown Academy head coach Jim Fenerty was honest about his team’s standing Friday night.

His Patriots, now in year two of what he hoped was going to be an on-the-fly rebuild, had just lost the headlining matchup in their home Make-A-Wish tournament to the George School, 56-55.

“We played hard, but I don’t think we played well,” Fenerty said.

Despite the thin margin, GA always seemed like it was fighting from farther behind – even when it led. Patriot jumpers rarely fell through, and on defense, George School cut through the lane almost at will.

When the Cougars weren’t attacking the paint, GA defenders were leaving them open on the perimeter.

“It’s not working so we’ve got to do something else,” Fenerty said. “We’ve got to find a plan B.”

Germantown Academy’s Plan A for the matchup was to attack the basket, knowing that the Cougars were susceptible to fouls.

It should have worked – Jordan Longino, an all-conference sophomore, can generally do what he wants on the court. Flanking him, the combination of Brian Basile, Zach Anderson, Luke Traina and Juan Adames either have enough quickness, size, or some combination thereof to get to the lane.

Instead, the Patriots settled for mid-and-long range jumpers from the start.

“We were taking an awful lot of quick jump shots and they weren’t going in,” Fenerty said. “We didn’t go to the basket, and didn’t get to the foul line as a result.”

“Who’s going to foul you when you’re shooting a 20-foot jumper and not making it?” he went on.

GA left the first quarter in a 15-9 hole before pulling within a deuce to 25-23 at halftime. In that frame - GA’s most well rounded of the game - the Pats got the to line four times and shot 7-for-8. For eight minutes, things worked.

After a tight third quarter, they headed into the fourth quarter tied.

The last frame featured the best offense for GA: the Pats scored 19 points off the hands of four different players. Traina and Adames scored 10 between them - all from inside the lane - but the team’s play on the other side was porous.

There, lax pressure on the George School perimeter led to five three-point makes for the Cougars. Charlie Trey-Masters, the diminutive guard with an appropriate last name, knocked in three triples while Kenneth Rodriguez and Onias Outlaw hit one each.

“We left - who we identified as guys who could really shoot - open,” Fenerty said. “When you leave good players open they’re going to make shots.”

Despite all this, GA still had a chance to come away with a win. Traina made a layup with less than a minute to go, pulling the Pats within one. When Trey-Masters missed the first shot of his one-and-one after a foul on the subsequent inbound, Fenerty called a quick timeout.

Longino took the ball up the court, but a broken play led to another timeout. Again, Longino took the inbound, this time with eight seconds left, and worked his way to the left corner. Unable to find any daylight to the hoop, he pulled up for an awkward jumper, clearly trying to draw contact and get a foul.

No defender bit, and the clock expired without a shot leaving his hands.

GA’s sophomore star led with 22, while Traina was the only other Patriot to finish in double figures with 10. Basile put up at least a dozen shots, but only came away with six points on a pair of makes and two free throws.

“We’re just not making shots and our guys aren’t playing well. We’ve got to get into some kind of rhythm,” Fenerty said.

They appeared to find it in their matchup Saturday against the Academy at Palumbo, where GA left with an 82-50 win. There, four Pats reached double figures: Longino (24), Traina (17), Anderson (14) and Basile (12).

It’s a step in the right direction, but their woes won’t go away overnight and the Pats (4-3 overall) still have fault lines that need addressing. They’ll have a week to work it out in practice before hosting Friere Charter School (Center City) next Saturday.

“Because no one else is looking to score, Jordan is to the point of where he’s trying to do too much,” Fenerty said. “That’s not his game.”

“I’m trying to talk him out of that,” he went on. “But the bottom line is that somebody else has to step up... It’s too much to ask a sophomore to score 30 points per game to win.”

When Longino scores at least 27, GA is 3-0. Under that mark, the Pats are 1-3.

“Nobody in the Inter-Ac is going to let that happen,” Fenerty said. “Everybody knows that they’ve got to stop Jordan and make somebody else beat you.”

“Right now we’re trying to find that guy,” he said.

GA: 9 14 13 19: 55

GS: 15 10 11 20: 56

Germantown Academy

Jordan Longino 7 5-5 22; Luke Traina 5 0-0 10; Brian Basile 2 2-2 6; Juan Adames 2 0-0 4; Jake Hsu 2 0-0 4; Zach Anderson 1 1-2 3; Mike Rowan 1 1-1 3; Hans Lillis 0 2-2 2; Lacey Snowden 0 1-2 1.

George School

Charlie Trey-Masters 5 2-3 17; Onias Outlaw 3 7-10 13; Ryan Oster 4 0-1 10; Kenneth Rodriguez 3 0-0 9; Nazim Pierce 2 1-2 6; 0 1-2 1.

Around the Area:

It was a mixed-to-positive for other local teams. Springside Chestnut Hill split the four games it played, while Germantown Friends won two of three. Penn Charter, which also played at GA’s Make-A-Wish Tournament, won each of their weekend matchups while La Salle notched three more victories throughout the week.

La Salle’s (4-0) wins came via a 70-64 victory over Malvern Prep last Sunday, a 67-26 blowout over Executive Education Charter School Friday, and a 58-51 win over Constitution High School (Center City) on Friday. Konrad Kiszka reached double figures in all three with 22, 10 and 11 points in each respective contest, while Allen Powell registered a team-and-season-high 24 against Constitution. The Explorers will begin conference play with a busy week featuring games against Cardinal O’Hara on Tuesday, Archbishop Ryan on Thursday and West Catholic on Sunday.

Penn Charter (5-2) swept the Make-A-Wish tourney with a 70-60 win over Palumbo on Friday night and a 63-55 victory over George School on Saturday. Four players scored in double figures against Palumbo; Dylan Topaz led with 17, Ryan Holmes and Aaron Reisman contributed 15 apiece, and Mark Butler helped with 10 more. Holmes and Butler led the way over George School the following day with 16 and 14, respectively. This week, the Quakers will go on a Friends Schools League detour with games on Wednesday against Friends Central and Friday against Shipley.

In three games last week, Germantown Friends (4-4, 0-1) won a pair despite missing one of its top offensive players. Freshman Matt Johnson has been out since sustaining a concussion against Robeson High School on December 8 but Tyson Maddox and Nolan Grady have picked up some of the slack. Maddox scored at least double figures in all three games, with 12 in the Tigers 60-46 loss to Friends Central, 14 in a 58-29 blowout over Community Academy Charter School, and a team-leading 20 in a 47-38 over Dobbins High School. Elsewhere, Grady chipped in with 18 against CAC and another 10 against Dobbins. GFS has three more games this week: Wednesday against Springdale Prep (New Windsor, Md.), Friday against King School (Stamford, Ct.) and Saturday against nearby Hill-Freedman World Academy (Cedarbrook).

The Blue Devils’ (3-5) weekly highlights were victories over Chester Charter for the Arts (59-46) and Friends Central (53-41), while the downsides were a pair of single-digit losses to Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter (66-61) and the Solebury School (63-60). David Robinson and Jack McDonald have been leading the way for SCH, with averages of 14 points and eight rebounds and 12 points and six rebounds, respectively. The Blue Devils will host Central High School on Monday and the Charter High School for Architecture and Design (Center City) on Thursday, and will head to Harriton High School on Saturday afternoon.

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