Exeter on cusp of division title as Anthony Caccese fouls up Berks Catholic hopes
When Anthony Caccese picked up his third foul less than six minutes into Exeter’s Berks Conference Division II showdown Thursday at Berks Catholic Kevin Saenz was overcome with a sense of dread.
“We ended the first (quarter) with six points,” said the Eagles’ junior guard. “He had three fouls. Honestly, I thought we were in trouble.”
Turns out it was the Saints who were in trouble.
The 6-6 Caccese – an All-State football lineman known as ‘The Big Cheese’ — returned to the floor 90 seconds into the second quarter and never left. He finished with a career-high 27 points and 17 rebounds, a monster effort that carried the Eagles to a 49-45 victory and to the brink of their first division title in nearly 40 years.
“We like to be aggressive,” said Exeter coach Matt Ashcroft, explaining his decision to return Caccese to the floor with three fouls, and then keep him in the game after he drew his fourth with 7:13 remaining. “We play in attack mode. We took our chances, and fortunately it paid off.”
The Saints (8-3, 17-3) led by as many as eight points late in the first quarter and were up seven after Jack Miller hit the third of his third-quarter 3-pointers.
Ashcroft, ever fearful of Berks Catholic’s ability to sprint away, didn’t want to take any chances so he left his biggest asset on the floor. The Saints, a favorite to win the District 3 Class 4A title, do a lot of things well but defending the post is not one of them. They don’t have a lot of size or a true post player. Ashcroft knew that, so he was willing to roll the dice.
“He can trust me to go in there and not pick up any more fouls,” Caccese said. “I know what I have to do. If I pick up (another) foul there (in the second quarter) it’s a completely different game.”
The move paid immediate dividends as Caccese posted up low, took a feed from Reece Garvin and scored less than 30 seconds after re-entering. He scored his team’s next two baskets and the Eagles went into the half trailing just 19-15, Caccese supplying more than half the points.
He was just getting started.
Caccese continued to get good position down low in the third quarter and his teammates continued to get him the ball. He made 12-of-16 shots over the final three quarters, scoring 25 points, 19 points after intermission. He scored nine straight Exeter points during one stretch, his three-point play giving the Eagles their first lead at 23-22. Two more times in the fourth quarter his baskets put Exeter ahead.
“They couldn’t stop him, so we kept feeding him,” said Saenz, who had four of Exeter’s 12 assists (on 18 baskets).
Caccese had eight points in the final quarter, the last coming when he scored off a rebound to tie it 43-43 with 2:48 left. Zyion Paschall’s foul-line jumper a minute later gave the Eagles the lead for good.
“(Coach) told me at half: ‘Cheese, you’re playing the whole game. You’re not coming out. We need you.’ I knew when I picked up that fourth he was gonna trust me to go another quarter without picking up another foul.”
Saenz hit both ends of a one-and-one with 24 seconds left to stretch Exeter’s lead to 47-43. The Saints closed to 47-45 on Josiah Jordan’s drive five seconds later but got no closer.
Jordan tore the Eagles up in the first encounter when he scored a career-high 32 in a 73-63 win. Ashcroft changed things up this time and got a huge defensive effort from Saenz. Jordan, needing 19 points to become Berks Catholic’s all-time scoring leader, didn’t have a point in the first half and finished with seven.
“You have to be smart about who helps (on) JayJay, because (Ryan) Koch and (Jack) Miller don’t miss on catch-and-shoot 3’s,” Ashcroft said. “We just wanted to make him work hard, and we wanted to try to affect him with a little bit of length, and we wanted to help in smart ways, and I thought we did.”
Jordan’s first basket didn’t come until the 23rd minute of the game. He got just seven shots and wasn’t able to create points off his defense as he usually does because Exeter was so good with the ball; it committed only seven turnovers.
Saenz, who at 6-3 has about four inches on Jordan, was excited for, and up to, the challenge of stopping the Saints’ leading scorer.
“I just went into it with a ‘dawg’ mindset,” Saenz said. “I know he’s a ‘dawg;’ he’s probably one of the best players in the county, so I had to come with a mindset of: ‘I don’t care who you are, I’m locking you up.’ ”
The win was huge for all sorts of reasons. It puts Exeter, which has traditionally played in the division with Berks’ largest schools and best basketball programs – Reading High, Wilson, Gov. Mifflin and, back in the day, Holy Name – in position to win its first division title in four decades. A win Tuesday against Twin Valley (4-15) will make the Eagles the Berks II champs.
Their last division championship came in the 1983-84 season when they beat Reading High in overtime and closed out the Berks II title by beating Holy Name.
The victory also boosted Exeter’s power rating. It moved up to No. 2 in the unofficial power ratings posted on the District 3 website late Thursday.
“These kids have gone through struggles,” Ashcroft said. “They’ve gone through a lot of heartbreak. I think that’s what makes them so tough. They just keep going. They’re pretty unfazed. I’m proud of ’em.”
“We expect this,” Caccese said. “We knew this is a team we can beat. We knew if we came out here and played the ball we wanted to play and stuck to our game plan that we could get the job done, and that’s exactly what we did.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Exeter | 6 | 9 | 17 | 17 | 49 |
| Berks Catholic | 12 | 7 | 17 | 9 | 45 |
| Eagles (15-5) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Paschall | 2-8 | 3-4 | 1-3 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Saenz | 2-10 | 4-6 | 1-3 | 4 | 6 | 9 |
| Snyder | 0-2 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Garvin | 1-6 | 0-1 | 1-5 | 3 | 6 | 3 |
| Cacchese | 13-19 | 1-3 | 0-0 | 0 | 17 | 27 |
| Sheerin | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Dauble | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Kelsey | 0-4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Totals | 18-50 | 10-16 | 3-12 | 12 | 39-42 | 49 |
| Saints (17-3) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Geddio | 1-5 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Jordan | 3-7 | 0-4 | 1-1 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| Koch | 5-18 | 0-0 | 2-11 | 1 | 8 | 12 |
| Miller | 3-5 | 0-0 | 3-5 | 0 | 3 | 9 |
| J. McKoy | 4-13 | 1-2 | 1-3 | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| K. McKoy | 2-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Nein | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lawlor | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 18-52 | 1-6 | 8-22 | 5 | 25-26 | 45 |
Turnovers: Exeter 7, Berks Catholic 7.
