Penns Valley boys’ basketball takes care of business against Philipsburg-Osceola
The Penns Valley boys’ basketball team took care of business Wednesday night to secure a blowout victory over Philipsburg-Osceola. The Rams defeated the Mounties 67-29 to secure their eighth win of the season.
“It was a good test for us,” Penns Valley head coach Terry Glunt said. “They’ve been playing everybody tough. I thought we had a really tough matchup tonight. I was pleased with our defense. I think we’re growing as a team and we showed that tonight.”
The game started with methodical offensive possessions. Both teams came out playing zone defense and forced the opposition to make quick passes to find open shots. The zone defenses played out in Penns Valley’s favor early on, with the Rams forcing P-O to settle for bad shots.
The Rams were able to find space in the Mountie zone along the baseline. P-O utilized a 3-2 zone with three defenders along the perimeter and two on the interior. The Rams found openings under the hoop when the two baseline defenders stepped too far from the rim. Senior guard Aaron Tobias showed off his vision on several occasions, hitting open teammates near the rim underneath the zone.
His passing, and his teammates’ shooting, helped the Rams take a 13-9 lead after a quarter of play.
They built on their lead in the second quarter with more ball movement and shooting from beyond the arc. The Rams made their open shots in the quarter to tally 11 points and extend their lead to nine.
The Mounties struggled to crack the Penns Valley 2-3 zone in the first half. The Rams’ constant communication and stonewalling of ball handlers made life difficult on the Philipsburg-Osceola offense. The P-O guards struggled to get to the rim because of the zone and didn’t move the ball enough to find the cracks in the defense.
Philipsburg-Osceola head coach Matt Curtis said the Mounties had to get out of the zone because the Rams were so good against it.
“We thought we’d come out and throw something different at them,” Curtis said. “Our back guys got a little out of place and we didn’t rotate. They were disciplined and got good shots and we had to get out of it quickly.”
The Rams took control at the start of the second half and never looked back. Snyder set the tone early in the half with his transition passing and scoring. Snyder and teammate Zach Braught, a sophomore wing, put a bow on the win halfway through the third quarter.
Snyder broke free for a 2-on-1 in transition and found Braucht, who rose up and dunked on a Mountie defender to extend the Rams’ lead to 42-17 with 4:34 left in the quarter. It was all Penns Valley from there. The Rams pulled their starters at the end of the third quarter and never had to put them back in the game en route to their 67-29 victory.
The Mounties were led in the game by freshman guard Jacob DeSimone with 11 points, while Snyder led the Rams with 18 and Braucht added 13 of his own.
Penns Valley 67, Philipsburg-Osceola 29
(Wednesday at Spring Mills)
Penns Valley 13 11 29 14 — 67
Bellefonte 9 6 6 8 — 29
Penns Valley (8-5)
Logan Snyder 4 (3) 1-3 18, Zach Braucht 5 (1) 0-0 13, Aaron Tobias 4 0-1 8, Aidan Brinker 2 (1) 0-0 7, Caleb Narbor 2 (1) 0-0 7, Kyle Niewinski 3 0-0 6, Collin Emel 2 0-0 4, John Aston 1 0-0 2, Aidan Culver 1 0-0 2
Philipsburg-Osceola (6-6)
Jacob DeSimone 2 (1) 4-4 11, Kaleb Richardson 3 0-0 6, Tyler Doyle 2 0-0 4, Parker Matson 2 0-0 4, Oliver Harpster, 0 (1) 0-0 3, Jeremy Whitehead 0 1-2 1.
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 10:53 PM.
