Schuylkill Valley building playoff resume with construction worker’s mentality
Mark Rajnath emerged from the Schuylkill Valley locker room Tuesday night wearing a construction hard hat.
It was appropriate gear.
In a 43-31 win over rival Hamburg that was more about work ethic and determination than skill or style the Panthers’ senior turned the game around with a true blue collar effort.
His steals, defense and a couple of clutch shots helped the Panthers (3-1, 9-3) pull away over the final 12 minutes for a key Berks Conference Division III victory.
“That’s what we are,” said Panthers coach Taylor Grim, who knows no one on his roster is going to win a shooting contest or lead the league in scoring.
Other than Rajnath, who hit his scoring average with 16 points, they don’t have a skilled offensive player or consistent shooter.
Grim knows all too well that defense never takes a night off. That’s what’s put his team in position to return to the District 3 Tournament and maybe even the league playoffs, both of which they missed last season when they lost twice as many times as they won.
“The kids battled,” Grim said. “They made enough plays to win. Everybody kind of did what they needed to do to make up for the missed shots.”
There was plenty to make up for, that’s for sure. The Panthers couldn’t buy a basket. They made just a third of their shots. Take away Rajnath’s back-to-back 3’s in the third quarter and they were 0-for-15 from beyond the arc.
And still they won.
They put the game away with a 10-0 run early in the fourth quarter and by holding the Hawks (2-2 Berks III, 7-5) without a basket for over seven minutes of the final quarter.
The Hawks didn’t shoot out the lights, either. They missed 35-of-47 shots, a number of them chippies. They got 16 offensive rebounds could couldn’t take advantage of them.
Add to that 22 turnovers — representing about a third of their possessions — and you can see why they finished 22 points below their scoring average.
“We continue to beat ourselves,” said Hawks coach Kevin McFarland, whose team has dropped three of its last five. “Turnovers have been an achilles heel for us.”
A bunch of the Hawks turnovers were unforced but a bunch more were because of the Panthers’ aggressivene style and the way they effectively doubled ballhandlers. Rajnath led the way. He had half-a-dozen steals and forced a few other turnovers by being so active.
“Applying defensive pressure, that set us up for a lot of fastbreaks,” Rajnath said. “We wanted to speed the game up, apply our pressure and turn our defense into points.”
They did exactly that, forcing five turnovers during the decisive 10-0 run that gave them a 36-26 lead with 3 1/2 minutes left.
“That might’ve been our best game defensively this year,” Grim said. “We were sound. Everything we’ve been teaching, we did it really well. Our help was coming from baseline, they weren’t getting room in the paint, our switches were good.”
Despite starting the game in a 9-0 hole and seeing Xander Menapace sit for 12 of 16 minutes in the first half because of fouls the Hawks managed to regain their equilibrium and move ahead by four points in the third quarter.
The Panthers struggled to find shots against 3-2 zone and struggled to knock down the ones they took. Rajnath, one of the most improved players in the league, bailed them out with a couple of 3-pointers that swung the game in his team’s favor.
The Hawks still have a lot of season left and are in position to qualify for the District 3 Tournament for the first time in 23 years. Letting a winnable game such as this slip away could come back and bite them a month from now when the district fields are set.
“I’m not gonna sugarcoat it,” McFarland said, “As a team, we folded when it was crunch time. These young men have got to understand: When it’s winning time, you’ve gotta make winning plays. And we, as a team, didn’t make winning plays, and (Schuylkill Valley) did, and that’s what it came down to.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Hamburg | 6 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 31 |
| Schuylkill Valley | 12 | 4 | 10 | 17 | 43 |
| Hawks (7-5) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Menapace | 1-8 | 3-8 | 0-0 | 1 | 10 | 5 |
| McFarland | 7-17 | 1-3 | 1-4 | 0 | 7 | 16 |
| Licklider | 0-6 | 0-0 | 0-4 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Bensinger | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| James | 2-4 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 | 12 | 4 |
| Werley | 2-10 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Clark | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| Totals | 12-47 | 6-14 | 1-9 | 3 | 40-44 | 31 |
| Panthers (9-3) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Giuffre | 4-7 | 3-5 | 0-0 | 2 | 5 | 2 |
| Faulk | 0-2 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| Houser | 1-6 | 0-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Rajnath | 5-13 | 4-4 | 2-6 | 2 | 4 | 16 |
| Hohenadel | 5-11 | 0-0 | 0-5 | 0 | 9 | 10 |
| Miley | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Spotts | 0-6 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Zimmerman | 0-1 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Johnson | 1-3 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Totals | 16-49 | 9-15 | 2-15 | 4 | 29-31 | 43 |
Turnovers: Hamburg 22, Schuylkill Valley 12.
