76ers’ home court not too big for Amaya Stewart and her Wyomissing teammates
2023 Berks basketball coverage presented by
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Years from now Audrey Hurleman, Annie McCaffrey and Alexis Hardy likely won’t remember that they shut Elco out in the fourth quarter and pulled away for a 43-27 non-league win.
What they will never forget is where they did it.
“These kids and their parents are going to remember this for the rest of their lives,” Wyomissing girls basketball coach Aaron Anders said Monday after the Spartans played at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
In the second half of the doubleheader the Elco boys beat Wyomissing 60-47.
The games were played on the home court of the Philadelphia 76ers as part of the team’s “Court of Dreams” experience.
The experience lived up to the name, Anders said.
“When we told them (last month that we would be playing here) they were super, super excited,” he said. “As soon as they got into the building you could see their eyes going straight up.
“It’s just an amazing experience for our kids, our program, our family, our school.”
The game should be valuable for the Spartans (7-0), too. They cruised through their first six games, winning by an average of 29.3 points.
This time they had to work a full 32 minutes against an unbeaten Raiders team.
The game was tied 17-17 at the half. The Spartans went into the fourth quarter with a four-point lead. It’s the first time since they ended last season in the PIAA Tournament that they’ve had a competitive game.
Wyomissing’s trademark halfcourt zone was the difference as Elco, which had been averaging 50 points per game, did not score over the final eight minutes.
“We just started to wear ’em down,” Anders said. “Our defense really started to wear on ’em, tire ’em out, and then we started finishing.”
Six different players scored one basket during Wyomissing’s 12-0 fourth-quarter finishing run. Amaya Stewart finished with 15 points and Hurleman scored a career-high 12.
“That’s a big plus for us,” Anders said of seeing Hurleman, his defensive stopper, come through with a big offensive game.
Elco (5-1), ranked No. 1 in the District 3 Class 4A power ratings, won its first five games by an average of 19 points. Wyomissing entered the game ranked No. 4 in the district.
In the boys game Elco’s Kaden Schultz-Tillison scored seven first-quarter points as the Raiders took a 17-10 lead and continued to expand it. Schultz-Tillison finished with a game-high 20 points, including three 3-pointers.
That’s impressive since all the teams, girls and boys, were playing with the NBA 3-point line, which is 22 feet in the corners and 23-9 elsewhere. That’s much deeper than the 19-9 arc used in high school games.
Freshman Justice Hardy scored a game-high 15 points for the Spartans (0-2), who didn’t open their season until Friday at Schuylkill Valley. The start of the season was pushed back due to an extended football playoff run that didn’t end until Dec. 1.
Logan Hyde scored nine points and Birkley Ziegler and Aiden Schippers each scored eight for Wyomissing. Dylan Latourelle made the team’s only 3-pointer.
Elco improved to 4-2.
