North Pocono stops Pittston Area in D2 playoffs
COVINGTON TWP. – Pittston Area’s Al Semenza knows now that Jack Locker may not have quite been ready when the coach placed Locker in the Patriots starting lineup for the first five games of this season.
Semenza correctly assessed that Locker had gotten himself ready for a return to the starting five for three games at the end of the season.
Locker’s 24 points, built largely on 6-for-10 shooting from 3-point range, helped keep Pittston Area in much of its season finale before falling to third-seeded North Pocono, 73-65, in a District 2 Class 5A boys basketball quarterfinal Friday night.
“He struggled early in the year,” Semenza said. “He’s a kid who didn’t have a lot of varsity time from last year. Maybe I rushed him a little bit.”
Locker, however, kept working on his game.
“He’s a guy who didn’t quit,” Semenza said. “He’s a guy who kept coming in every day and kept working and slowly I saw him come into what I thought he would be when I made the move early.
“This was not a surprise. I had a lot of confidence in him. I think he’s going to have a helluva senior year.”
North Pocono coach Pat Shields may not have expected to see so much of Locker, but with help of his younger players, he was aware that Locker was a threat on the 3-point line.
“He wasn’t a regular starter from what we saw on film, but we did know he could shoot,” Shields said. “All of our JV kids were telling us that, too.”
Even though the Trojans paid him proper attention, they could not contain Locker, who hit his first three tries in a little more than three minutes to begin the game.
Locker wound up 9-for-14 from the floor overall before fouling out.
While he put up the best numbers, he was not the only one to find offensive success.
North Pocono shot better than 60 percent from the floor for most of three quarters and both teams played four scorers in double figures.
The Trojans finished at 68.8 percent (22-for-32) on their attempts from inside the arc with Damarco Maglio and Chris Walsh each perfect in six attempts.
Maglio had 18 points while Chris Walsh had 16, Ryan Ruddy 15 and Zach Walsh 12.
“That was the pace we like – up in the 60s, 70s, 80s, if possible,” North Pocono coach Pat Shields said.
Matt Johnson finished with 17 points, Anthony Cencetti 11 and J.J. Walsh 10 for the Patriots. Cencetti led the team with eight rebounds was Walsh had a team-high six assists.
“They did the things they had to do to make us play the way we did, as far as the turnovers and the up-tempo that we did not want to get into with them,” Semenza said.
The Patriots closed to within 63-57 on a Johnson 3-pointer from the right corner with 2:25 left. They got it back to 65-59 when J.J. Walsh set up Locker with 1:34 left.
Locker’s second and third 3-pointers were followed by four points from Cencetti, then a Johnson three-point play for a 13-4 Pittston Area run to a 16-12 lead with 1:17 left in the first quarter.
North Pocono tied the game with the last four points of the quarter and went ahead to stay when Chris Walsh opened the second with his only 3-pointer.
Third-seeded North Pocono advances to face second-seeded Abington Heights, a team that handed the Trojans one of their three losses this season and ended their 2020 season in an overtime game in the district quarterfinals.
Pittston Area went 9-10. Semenza said the team got in enough games that it will not exercise the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association option of continuing with more games after being eliminated from the playoffs.
North Pocono 73, Pittston Area 65
PITTSTON AREA (65) – Matt Johnson 5 5-5 17, J.J. Walsh 4 1-3 10, Jack Locker 9 0-0 24, Anthony Cencetti 4 3-4 11, David Behm 0 0-0 0, Dom Jannuzzi 1 0-0 2, Omar Aziz 0 1-2 1, Alex Hoban 0 0-0 0, Rob Barbieri 0 0-0 0, Brayden Powers 0 0-0 0. Totals 23 10-14 65.
NORTH POCONO (73) – Ryan Ruddy 4 7-10 15, Zach Walsh 2 8-9 12, Matt Domanish 1 0-0 2, Domarco Maglio 7 3-4 18, Chris Walsh 7 1-4 16, Billy Pabst 2 1-2 5, Matt Kowalski 2 0-0 5. Totals 25 20-29 75.
Pittston Area`16`12`13`24`—`65
North Pocono`16`20`18`19`—`73
Three-point goals – PA 9 (Locker 6, Johnson 2, Walsh 1), NP 3 (Maglio 1, C. Walsh 1, Kowalski 1).
