Fleetwood nails down first division title in 66 years

Fleetwood essentially wrapped up the Berks Conference Division III title earlier in the week with a second straight win over second-place Wyomissing.

The celebration had to wait until Thursday when the Tigers made things official with a 55-36 crossover win at Brandywine Heights.

The victory clinched the Division III title, the first division championship for the Tigers (8-2, 15-4) in 66 years.

Sophomore guard Aiden Soumas scored a team- and career-high 16 points and junior Jake Karnish had 13.

The Tigers put the game away by holding the Bullets (1-10 Berks IV, 5-13) scoreless in the second period. Fleetwood led 28-14 at the half.

The division title comes as no surprise to the Tigers. They returned four starters and fully expected to finish first. They opened the season with seven straight wins, won their first three league games and went wire-to-wire in first place.

“We knew we were capable of it,” sophomore guard Nate Herb. “Nobody else thought we were; we just had to prove it.”

“We want people to see how good we can be, and how good we are, the kind of program we’re building,” Tigers coach Terry Sitler said last week after they knocked off Berks IV-leading Antietam. “People were overlooking us (at the beginning of the season), thinking that we’re not one of the top 10 teams in the county, and we really think we are.”

There’s plenty of basketball hardware in the Fleetwood trophy case, but none from recent years. The Tigers haven’t played a postseason game in nearly 20 years and have won one since 1990, when they captured the District 3 Class AAA championship. They also won a district title in 1984.

Division titles have been even tougher to come back. The Tigers tied for the second-half title in 1979 but lost a playoff for the title.

To find a division title you’d have to go back to 1956, when they won the last of four straight championships.