Hoop Notes: Eagles playoff-ready, Ruben climbing, Red Knights finishing strong
Exeter coach Matt Ashcroft is confident his team will be battle-tested once it reaches the postseason.
“These guys have been through a lot,” he said Thursday after the Eagles came from eight points down to beat Berks Catholic 49-45 and move into position to secure the Berks Conference Division II title.
The Eagles walked a tight rope the whole night, with 6-6 center Anthony Caccese picking up three early fouls and playing the final seven minutes with four fouls. Ashcroft went against conventional wisdom, sent his hulking center back on the floor early in the second quarter with three fouls and watched him play with poise and under control to record a career night, with 27 points and 17 rebounds.
Now the Eagles (9-2, 15-5) are on the cusp of their first division championship since 1983-84, when they outdistanced Reading High, Gov. Mifflin, Wilson and Holy Name to win the Berks II title in the old three-division format.
To get there they took 3-of-4 games in their Division I crossovers, beating Wilson, Muhlenberg and Mifflin, and split with Berks Catholic.
Thursday’s win ended the Saints’ 65-game Berks II winning streak. The Saints had gone 9-for-9 winning Berks II titles before moving up to Division I for the last two seasons.
Exeter can snap that streak by beating Twin Valley (4-15) in its league finale Tuesday at Reiffton.
It’ll mean a lot to a program that has suffered more than its share of setbacks and tough breaks in recent seasons.
“There’s not much these juniors and seniors haven’t seen,” Ashcroft said. “Blowout losses. Close losses. Buzzer-beaters. Heartbreakers.
“(At) Santander last year (in a Berks Conference semifinal against Berks Catholic), we lose with seven seconds left. So, we’ve seen it all. Not much fazes these guys.
“They’ve gone through struggles. 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.”
The win over Berks Catholic was big for a lot of reasons, chiefly Exeter’s standing in the District 3 Class 5A power ratings. The win over the 17-2 Saints pushed the Eagles up a couple spots to No. 2. If they can hold that they’ll get a first-round bye in districts, then play their first two district games at home. If they win their first two district games they’ll reach the championship March 2 at Giant Center. They need just one victory in districts to qualify for the PIAA Tournament.
A loss likely would’ve meant they would enter the district tournament as a No. 5 seed, meaning they would have to win an additional game to reach the finals and likely need to win twice on the road to get there. Big difference.
Exeter plays at Cedar Cliff Monday and wraps up its regular season Tuesday.
The Eagles have won as many as 18 games only once in the last 38 seasons.
Ashcroft was excited to see his team in position to win a division title, and to beat his old coach, Snip Esterly, whom he played for at Central Catholic. Still, he sees bigger things for this team.
“It’s a pretty neat feeling,” he said of being in position to win Berks II. “It’s exciting. This is step one. We have loftier aspirations than this.”
One more thing about the Eagles
It’s easy to forget now, seeing Exeter doing so well, but it’s having one of its best seasons without someone who might’ve been their leading scorer this season: Joey Schlaffer.
The 6-7 Schlaffer averaged 10.6 points in 17 games as a junior before he was injured late in the regular season.
Schlaffer, an All-State tight end and Penn State recruit, skipped his final semester of high school so that he could enroll early in college and begin training with the football team.
Imagine the impact he could be making with the Eagles right now.
History at the doorstep
A win Tuesday at Muhlenberg will give Reading High a 21-1 finish, the best in Rick Perez’s 12 seasons and one of the best in program history.
The Red Knights have finished the regular season unbeaten three times: In 1990-91, when they went 24-0; 2007-08, when they finished 23-0; and 1965-66, when they went 22-0.
They have finished four other regular seasons with one loss, the best of them a 26-1 finish (with 16 league games!) in 1980-81 under Jim Gano.
Perez’s best regular season finish came in the COVID-truncated 2020-21 season, when the Red Knights went 18-1; they didn’t open that season until Jan. 9. They closed it with their second PIAA championship, beating Archbishop Wood. Their only loss in the regular season came to Stevie Mitchell and Wilson.
Perez’s other best regular season was 19-2 in 2015-16, Lonnie Walker IV’s junior season. That team reached the PIAA semifinals.
Climbing the ladder
Ruben Rodriguez heads into Reading High’s regular season finale with 1,763 career points, No. 11 on the all-time Berks scoring list.
Next up: Lonnie Walker IV. Rodriguez needs 66 points to knock the legendary Walker out of the Berks Top 10.
He figures to have at least eight more games, maybe close to a dozen, to get there. The Red Knights (20-1) play at Muhlenberg Tuesday, then could play three games in the Berks Conference Tournament and three more in the District 3 Class 6A Tournament, assuming they win enough games to get the final game of each.
If Reading holds onto the No. 1 seed for districts it’ll open at home Feb. 24 and need just one win to qualify for the PIAA Tournament.
Rodriguez is averaging 22.5 points per game and battling Fleetwood’s Jake Karnish (22.8) for the Berks scoring title. Rodriguez was Berks’ top scorer last season, at 19.8 per game.
Only five Reading players have averaged 20 or more points in a season. Donyell Marshall and Stu Jackson each did it twice. The others: Bill Jankans, Wesley Butler and Brian D’Amico.
Berks all-time scoring leaders
| Ron Krick | West Reading | 1961 | 3,174 |
| Charlie Copp | Tulpehocken | 2000 | 2,440 |
| Keith Bricker | Conrad Weiser | 1978 | 2,221 |
| Stevie Mitchell | Wilson | 2021 | 2,060 |
| Jarrad Gruber | Hamburg | 2000 | 2,014 |
| Aaron Williamson | Hamburg | 1990 | 2,012 |
| Seth Brizek | Oley Valley | 1992 | 1,956 |
| Dick Hauck | Kutztown | 1961 | 1,942 |
| Greg Brizek | Conrad Weiser | 2003 | 1,853 |
| Lonnie Walker IV | Reading High | 2017 | 1,828 |
| Ruben Rodriguez | Reading High | 2023 | 1,763 |
Streak continues
Daniel Boone appears headed for its fifth winless league record in the last six seasons. The Blazers close the regular season Tuesday against Berks Catholic. They are 0-11 in league play.
The Blazers, coming off a winless 2021-22 season, showed some promise early this season, winning their season-opener and three of their first five games. They have lost 16 straight since.
They lost their 25th straight league game Thursday, falling to Muhlenberg 84-52. They have gone 1-62 in league play over the past six seasons and 3-90 over the past nine.
Finishing strong
Fleetwood and Oley Valley, the Berks III and IV champs, respectively, are streaking into the playoffs with a lot of momentum.
The Tigers are 20-1, recording just the fifth 20-win season in program history and the first since 1983-84. If they win Tuesday at Wyomissing they’ll lock down the best regular-season finish in program history and go into the postseason with eight straight wins.
The Lynx are 17-4, with 10 straight wins. They close the regular season Tuesday at home against Kutztown. They need three wins to record just the second 20-win season in program history, and first since 2004-05.
Oley’s winning streak is its longest since 2004-05, when it won 15 straight. The Lynx’s 17 wins are their most since they went 22-5 in 2004-05.