Bulldogs flip the script, score huge comeback win against Muhls
Matt Coldren figured no around the Berks Conference was upset to see his Wilson basketball team open league play with three straight defeats — something the Bulldogs hadn’t experienced for at least 50 years, maybe longer.
Some people were probably happy to see them struggle, he figured, what with the amazing run they had put together with Stevie Mitchell the past few seasons. They won back-to-back Berks Conference championships and 36 straight league games at one point, one short of the league record.
“No one cares that you’re 0-3,” he told his guys at halftime Thursday when they were down 14 points to Muhlenberg and staring at 0-4, “so stop feeling sorry for yourselves.”
The Bulldogs flipped the switch a little while later. They found something that worked defensively, with a zone press . . . Keegan Coldren started to feel it from beyond the arc . . . and before you knew it they were on top, wiping away all of a 17-point deficit with a furious rally that saw them knock off the Berks II-leading Muhls 57-56 in West Lawn.
Three nights after blowing a 21-point lead in a loss at Exeter they flipped the script and maybe saved their season in the process.
“We lost a bunch of close games this year,” said Keegan Coldren, who knocked down four 3-pointers, three in the final quarter, and led the Bulldogs with 12 points. “To finally come out on top in a close game . . . it feels amazing.”
The Bulldogs (1-3, 5-4) were down 44-28 after Muhlenberg center Edwin Suarez, who had been wrecking them all night, scored off a miss with 2:42 left in the third quarter. A few moments later he hobbled off the floor after turning his right ankle.
Pardon the pun but that may have been the turning point of the game. With him out for the final 2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter the Bulldogs got some life. They scored the final six points to pull within single digits.
Cam Jones sensed it.
“With him being on the bench it was like: ‘We can take advantage of this,’ ” said Wilson’s junior guard. “And we did.”
Suarez returned to start the fourth quarter and continued to dominate. He had nine fourth-quarter points to complete a career-high 27-point night; he also snared 16 rebounds, blocked a couple shots and altered several others.
Problem is he’s all the Muhls (2-1, 6-2) had. Not another player made a field goal in the second half; he scored 20 of their 23 second-half points.
“Any time you take a kid like that off the floor, it changes the dynamics,” said Muhls coach Matt Flowers.
The bigger problem was Wilson’s three-quarters-court 1-2-2 zone press, and the way the Muhls reacted to it, which wasn’t pretty.
They had trouble attacking the zone and lost all of their offensive cohesion. If Suarez didn’t make a sweet move to the basket or put back a miss they didn’t score.
“As soon as we saw that 1-2-2 zone . . . it was like chaos,” Flowers said.
Jones noticed that, too.
“We started pressing to hurry them up and the game started to turn,” he said.
He also sensed that Keegan Coldren, the coach’s son, was feeling it and did his best to get him the ball on the wing.
Coldren hit a pair of 3’s in the opening minute of the fourth quarter and suddenly it was 47-42.
No one has out-shot the Muhls in years but the Bulldogs did it. Coldren made 4-of-7 from behind the arc and junior Aidan Melograna hit both his 3-point attempts, the second cutting Muhlenberg’s lead to 50-47.
Coldren’s last shot of the night, with 1:56 to go, made it 54-51 and gave the Bulldogs their first lead since it was 4-2.
The Muhls weren’t done. They pulled within one point twice, the last with 6.5 seconds left. They had one last chance, when Eric Branch grabbed a missed rebound with 6.1 seconds left and raced up court; his hurried drive was off the mark at the buzzer.
Had they not missed half their 24 free throws, or done better than 5-for-14 from the line in the fourth quarter, they wouldn’t have needed last-second heroics.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, badly needed a reason to celebrate after a close game.
“I’m just so happy for them,” Matt Coldren said of his guys, who lost buzzer-beaters to Gov. Mifflin and Hempfield. “I keep telling people it’s a good group. They just have been in the shadows of Stevie’s group forever, and they never got a chance to play — and it shows. That’s why we lost those three games. Tonight, we learned a little bit; we got a little bit better.”
The win was Coldren’s 362nd at Wilson, tying him with Reggie Weiss for the program record, but his thoughts were elsewhere after a breakthrough win.
“I’m just so happy for our guys that they got over that hump, and I’m hoping that propels us to having more confidence,” Coldren said. “It’s been tough for them . . . classmates doubting them at school. We haven’t lost many games the last few years. When we lost those three games, people were hard on them. They were starting to doubt themselves.”
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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Muhlenberg | 21 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 56 |
| Wilson | 11 | 8 | 17 | 38 | 57 |
| Muhlenberg (2-1, 6-2) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Suarez | 10-18 | 7-12 | 0-1 | 0 | 16 | 27 |
| Mosquero | 2-5 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Alexis | 4-10 | 0-0 | 2-5 | 0 | 3 | 10 |
| Branch | 0-3 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Adonis | 1-7 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| Robertson | 1-3 | 3-6 | 1-1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Valentine | 2-4 | 1-3 | 1-3 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Zaorski | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Totals | 20-50 | 12-24 | 4-12 | 5 | 31/36 | 56 |
| Wilson (1-3, 5-4) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Jones | 3-9 | 2-4 | 1-3 | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| Coldren | 4-7 | 0-0 | 4-7 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
| Harding | 3-13 | 3-5 | 0-1 | 2 | 5 | 9 |
| Odiale | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Sillah | 5-6 | 1-5 | 0-0 | 0 | 8 | 11 |
| Melograna | 2-2 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Breslin | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gruber | 2-4 | 4-4 | 0-2 | 1 | 2 | 8 |
| Weitzel | 0-1 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Totals | 19-43 | 12-21 | 7-16 | 7 | 29/31 | 57 |
Turnovers: Muhlenberg 14; Wilson 18.
