Are Exeter and Muhlenberg headed for a rematch in District 3 semis?
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Exeter’s Reece Garvin didn’t mind coming into the District 3 Tournament as a No. 10 seed.
The all-division forward knows seeds are only numbers; they might determine where you play and what color jersey you wear but not how well you play.
“I like the underdog title,” the senior said after Exeter opened the Class 5 tournament at Lampeter-Strasburg with a 73-49 victory, “even though in my opinion we’re not the underdog. We won it last year, so we’re defending champs; we’re going for it again.”
Garvin and the Eagles are used to being on top at this time of year. They entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed a year ago and went on to win their first district championship.
Now they head to Mechanicsburg Friday to play the No. 2 seed with a berth in the district semifinals on the line.
Just down the road No. 11 Muhlenberg, another team that believes it is better than its seed, will be at No. 3 York Suburban. The Muhls gritted out a 42-37 win at No. 6 West York Monday.
Both the Muhls and Eagles clinched return trips to the state tournament with their opening-round victories.
The Wildcats (17-5) earned a first-round bye after a late-season run that saw them win 9-of-11 and finish tied for first with Hershey in the Mid-Penn Conference Keystone Division. The game will be a rematch of last year’s state quarterfinal, which the Eagles won 66-49.
The Eagles (16-8) finished second to Berks Catholic in the Division II of the Berks Conference and got knocked out in the opening round of the league playoffs by eventual champ Wilson, but that baggage won’t deter them.
“We can compete with anybody in the state,” said All-Berks senior Kevin Saenz after scoring a game-high 26 points at Lampeter-Strasburg. “We’ve had a lot of up and down this season, but we know in our hearts that we’ve been here before and there’s no reason we can’t get back here.”
If Monday’s opener was any indication Saenz is on target. The seventh-seeded Pioneers couldn’t stop the highest-scoring team in the Berks Conference from running up and down the court and knocking down nine 3’s.
The Eagles got 14 points from Aiden Dauble and 10 from Brady Murray. Now they face a Mechanicsburg team that hasn’t played in two weeks after it missed the Mid-Penn Conference Tournament, where only four teams qualify.
Wins by both Exeter and Muhlenberg would set up a semifinal rematch Monday at Reiffton; the higher-seeded team hosts until the championship games, which are played at Giant Center.
Muhlenberg won the regular season meeting 59-56 in Laureldale.
The Wildcats should look familiar to the Eagles. Their top player from a year ago, 6-2 junior Josh Smith returns; he scored 19 points and had nine rebounds against Exeter last year. Chase Yanoski, one of three sophomore starters for Mechanicsburg last season, scored eight against Exeter.
Exeter, with two starters and four of its top six scorers returning, figured to make another trip to the PIAA Tournament. Not so for the Muhls. They returned little experience from last year’s 18-11 team and the leading scorer in their only state playoff win last year, Michael Miller, made it through only 11 games this season before being forced to the sidelines with a knee injury from football.
Making it back to the state tournament was no small achievement for Muhls coach Matt Flowers.
“I feel blessed and humbled,” he said after Monday’s win. “Our kids, the crew we had back, they were able to be part of the ride last year. They embraced what they saw last year.
“Shermar (Killen), he didn’t play a lot of minutes last year but he observed what was going on. Alex Collado, he observed what was going on; Kyle (Archie), he observed what was going on. Those guys watched, they were able to see what it looks like and now they’re prepared.”
Killen, a junior, was one of Berks’ most improved players this season and landed on the All-Berks squad after leading his team in scoring. Collado was an all-division pick after averaging 14.1 points.
They lost five times in league play but facing a schedule that included a pair of games against both Reading High and Wilson and one each against Berks Catholic and Exeter hardened the Muhls the way fire forges iron.
“We played a gauntlet of a schedule, and our young men have responded day in and day out and continue to fight,” Flowers said. “Our county has helped us get here because of how strong it is. (In our league) any day you can lose by 20 points, you can lose by 30 points, you can win by 10, but you know it’s gonna be a fight.”
The Muhls face a York Suburban (20-6) team that returned all of its starters, tied for the York League Division II title with West York, and reached league championship game against Central York.
The Trojans will be a challenge to defend: They have knocked down 194 3-pointers and feature one of the best freshman in the district, 6-foot guard Nasir Barnes, who is averaging 19.4 points.
