Red Knights sizzle on both ends in league-opening win over Mustangs
2023 Berks basketball coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
By Mike Mitchell Jr. — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent
Every day Francis Camara reminds his Reading High players to play with “pace and space.”
The Red Knights played with both Tuesday night en route to a 70-43 Berks Conference Division I victory over Gov. Mifflin at the Geigle.
The Red Knights (1-0, 3-3) played extremely unselfishly on the offensive end. As a team, they dished out 19 assists, led by sophomore guard Weshley Rosario, who had six.
They continually made the extra pass and it paid major dividends for them throughout the night.
“We tell our players to give up the good shot for the great shot,” said Camara. “We stress ball movement, ball movement, and more ball movement every day at practice.”
“We love to share the ball,” said senior guard Nick Chapman. “The coaches stress to us to get the best shot possible. We aren’t selfish and we are constantly looking for each other to get the best shot.”
Mifflin (0-2, 3-4) led 3-2. From that point on it was all Red Knights. They led 29-14 after the first period and 54-22 at halftime.
The 27-point loss was the biggest of the season for Mifflin, which dropped its Berks I opener last week to Muhlenberg, 58-44.
Senior forward Yadiel Cruz scored a game-high 23 points for Reading; he also collected eight rebounds and had three assists.
Chapman had 16 points, four assists, one rebound, and four steals. Senior center Malik Osumanu had 10 points, three rebounds, and three assists.
As good as the Red Knights were on offense, they may have even been more impressive on defense.
Facing a daunting non-league schedule the first two weeks of the season they were giving up 69 points per game.
Tuesday they forced 17 turnovers, 15 in the first half. The tenacious, pressure defense led to many easy transition layups for Reading.
“We focus hard on our defense,” said Chapman. “We need our defense to turn into offense for us.
“When you lose guys like Ruben Rodriguez and Aris Rodriguez, playing good defense can get you easy opportunities to make up for the scoring loss of those two guys.”
“Tonight we did a god job of staying disciplined defensively,” said Camara. “In some of our earlier games we weren’t as disciplined as we were tonight, and against the caliber of teams we were playing it hurt us.”
Reading’s losses came against Central York, Bonner-Prendergast and Philly powerhouse Imhotep Charter.
“Being undisciplined caused our rotations to get out of sorts and we got burned,” Camara said. “We were much better at staying disciplined tonight.”
The Red Knights went into league play with a losing record for the first time in over a decade.
“It was good to get our first league win,” Chapman said. “We just need to focus on getting better every day.”
Camara agreed.
“We just need to continue to stack good days together. We need to work on our game and get better each day.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Gov. Mifflin | 14 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 43 |
| Reading High | 29 | 25 | 10 | 6 | 70 |
| Mustangs (3-4) | FG | FT | A | R | Points |
| Koehler | 4 | 0-0 | 0 | 3 | 10 |
| Galantuomo | 2 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Detwiler | 4 | 4-6 | 0 | 6 | 13 |
| St Mayo | 0 | 2-2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Renninger | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Flerimon | 2 | 1-2 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| J. Johnson | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Byrne | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Leaf | 0 | 0-0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| Morris | 0 | 2-2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| D. Johnson | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Foster | 1 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Sa. Mayo | 1 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Curry | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Pletz | 1 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Totals | 11 | 9-12 | 5 | 20 | 43 |
| Red Knights (3-3) | FG | FT | A | R | Points |
| Cruz | 8 | 4-4 | 3 | 8 | 23 |
| Chapman | 5 | 5-5 | 4 | 1 | 16 |
| Camara | 1 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Osumanu | 4 | 2-2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Rosario | 3 | 0-0 | 6 | 3 | 7 |
| Pena | 2 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Sosa | 1 | 0-0 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Beatty | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Burgess | 2 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Jackson | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Salvador | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mercedes | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 19 | 11-11 | 19 | 20 | 70 |
3-pointers – Gov. MIfflin: Koehler 2, Detwiler, Pletz; Reading High (7): Cruz 3, Burgess 2, Chapman, Rosari. Turnovers: Gov. Mifflin 17, Reading High 10. Team rebounds: Gov. Mifflin 2, Reading High 1.
