High school basketball fans in Berks County were gifted a playoff-like matchup Friday night at West Lawn as a battle between Berks Conference Division I contenders went down to the wire and then some.
Going for its 10th straight win against Muhlenberg, Wilson held a one-point lead over the Muhls with 21.8 seconds to go in overtime. Senior guard Madyx Gruber had made 1-of-2 from the foul line moments prior to give the Bulldogs the lead after senior guard Alex Collado tied it for the Muhls with 46 seconds left.
Following a timeout and a foul, Muhlenberg worked the ball from one corner to the other to find sophomore guard Mike Miller open with just seconds remaining.
Miller’s corner 3-pointer was on target, but ultimately rattled out as time expired to give Wilson a dramatic 57-56 victory over the Muhls.
“That’s a good team,” Bulldogs coach Matt Coldren said of the Muhls. “I’ve been harping to our kids how good our league is. We know that Reading is always good. Exeter made it to the state finals last year. BC (Berks Catholic) won a district championship, and Muhlenberg is another great team.
“We got to be ready to play every night and I think tonight we were fortunate. I’ll take an ugly win over a loss any day.”
An ugly outcome for Coldren’s side was an unfortunate ending for Muhlenberg coach Matt Flowers’ squad, which had more than one chance to come away with the victory.
The Muhls (1-1, 6-3) had a chance to seal it in the final seconds of regulation when, following a Muhlenberg timeout with three seconds left, senior guard Julian Zabala threw a deep inbound pass from in front of his own bench to Kyle Archie under the rim.
Under heavy coverage from junior guard Tom McFadden, Archie was unable to collect the pass in the paint and Collado failed to corral the loose ball as the Muhls were unable to get a shot.
Similar to Coldren, Flowers was equally complimentary of a worthy adversary and said he was proud of his team’s effort.
“That’s a storied program over there,” Flowers said of Wilson. “We’re building a culture of winning and beating teams like that, and kudos to those guys, they played well. We got the shot we wanted (Miller’s overtime attempt) it just didn’t go down. When one of our most consistent guys gets to take a game-winner, its okay.
“Tomorrow the sun’s gonna shine and we’ll be fine. I’m proud of my kids today.”
Sophomore Correll Akings scored a career-high 23 points for the Bulldogs (2-0, 7-1), including the game-tying bucket with 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter that forced overtime. He also tied Gruber with a team-high six rebounds. Gruber finished with 12 points.
According to Coldren, the best is yet to come for Akings, who has improved immensely after scoring 76 points over 26 games a season ago.
“I tell people all the time we haven’t seen it (his best) yet,” Cauldron said. “He was lights out this summer. His jump shot was phenomenal. He was our best shooter by far this summer. And football is beating him up a little bit, and I’ve had this in the past with (football) guys, so the best is yet to come with him.
“Usually early January, guys will start getting their shots back and we’ll make sure over Christmas. We have some days off, but we’ll get him lots of reps. He brings a lot (to the team). He’s strong for a little guy. He gives us another ballhandler, he’s very energetic, and when he keeps making shots, we’re gonna be that much better off.”
Akings, a 5-10 guard, was 5-of-6 from the line and scored 16 points in the second half. For Akings, one of the 12 underclassmen on Wilson’s 16-man roster, the Bulldogs are working towards getting better through increased experience every day.
“We’ve become very close together, even though we haven’t been playing together for a long time now,” Akings said. “At practice, we just want to work really hard with each other making sure that everybody gets better one percent every day.”
“It feels really good to win against them. They’re very tough as a team and very energetic and they were really hard to guard. We just had to keep going on defense.
Strong defense was certainly necessary as Muhlenberg entered the game scoring an average of 63.1 points per game, the second-most in the Berks Conference.
Junior guard Shermar Killen had a team-high 16 points and a game-high 10 rebounds for the Muhls. Killen scored the layup in transition that gave Muhlenberg a 52-50 lead following a rebound by Archie with less than 30 seconds to go.
Archie ended with 10 points and Collado had 15.
Akings made a 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter and cut Wilson’s deficit to 43-41. From there, the Bulldogs forced two straight turnovers and scored the next four points to take the lead with 5:56 to go.
The Muhls led by as much as six in the third quarter after the two teams were tied 27-27 at halftime.
For Coldren, the victory was a welcomed sign of growth for a team that was inexperienced in high-pressure situations. The Bulldogs have four seniors on their roster and started just one Friday night in Tommy Hunsicker, who did not score.
“But I’m hoping we matured tonight,” Coldren said. “With the exception of Madyx, this is the first experience that those guys have had in a game like this. I think early we struggled. I don’t think we played a great game, but I thought as the third quarter went on, we got a little more confident and we did better in certain situations. I’m hoping this is a great learning experience for our young guys.”
Perhaps the biggest lesson Wilson’s underclassmen can learn is how to remain poised against relentless man coverage. Muhlenberg frequently turned to the fullcourt press and utilized double-teams in its man coverage strategies, which helped force the Bulldogs to lose the turnover battle 13-7.
Jon Etim, a 6-0 junior forward, helped spearhead the stifling defense with three blocks and two rebounds. He also scored eight points.
With the win, Wilson is 26-1 against Muhlenberg dating to 2008.
“I thought we could guard them and I thought we guarded them really well,” Flowers said. “We lost a couple of POA’s (points of attack), but it’s a game of runs. They had their run, we had our run and we just didn’t make the last shot.”
“It’s just like when you play Reading,” Coldren said of the Muhls’ defense. “They disrupt what you do, and then trying to run stuff doesn’t really work. Again, we were trying to harp at halftime with our young guys about the switching and so forth.
“Early they were just kind of standing on the wings, and looking dazed and confused a little bit. I’m just proud that they fought through and won a game where I don’t think we were at our best.”
Source: Berkshire mont