Mustangs ride a Harley to miraculous win over Bulldogs
The play called in the huddle with 23 seconds left and the game tied didn’t work out but that didn’t matter to Matt Harley. He was determined to take the final shot anyway.
“I was going good,” said the Gov. Mifflin senior. “I know I was gonna make the shot, so I just took the ball.”
Harley, a 6-5 forward, picked up a screen at the left elbow. He curled around it, drove the side of the lane, then kissed the ball softly off the glass with six seconds left, giving the Mustangs a 54-52 lead.
That shot, and a miss at the buzzer by Wilson, set off a wild celebration on the Mustangs’ home court. The student section stormed the court and Harley and the Mustangs basked in the glory of their first win over their arch-rivals since Stevie Mitchell was in junior high, five years ago.
“It was insane,” said Mustangs senior Tyler Minick of the heated atmosphere, with the rival student sections taking turns giving it to each other. “It was great.”
Minick, the first Mifflin guard off the bench, was an unlikely hero. He found himself alone on the right wing, his team down three with 40 seconds left. He didn’t hesitate when Delsin McNeil whipped the ball to him, draining a 3-pointer that tied it 52-52.
“Coach always preaches: ‘I want you shooting that shot,’ ” said Minick, who will play baseball at the University of Connecticut. “He has the confidence in me to go out and make shots like that, so I’m just grateful for the opportunity.”
“He’s open, he’s a capable shooter — he’s gotta let that one fly,” said Mifflin coach Kyle Conrad, “and he knocked it down. That was awesome.”
The Mustangs (2-1), who have struggled to score points at times in recent years, made all kind of shots in this Berks Conference Division I opener. They finished with 10 3-pointers, four by Harley. He made a string of clutch shots down the stretch, jamming 13 of his game-high 22 points into the final five minutes.
The Bulldogs (3-1) led 46-38 before Harley went off. He ignited the comeback with a three-point play off a drive that ended with him landing square on his back. Next time down he rolled off a screen and got open in the right corner for a ‘3’ that tied it 46-46.
“He was incredible tonight,” said Conrad. “Everybody knows Matt’s a scorer, and he’s not gonna get open easily. He’s gonna have to work for all of his baskets, and he did. He made some huge shots. He kind of put us on his back down the stretch.”
The win snapped a nine-game losing streak to the Bulldogs and was the first as a head coach for Conrad, now in his fifth season.
To get it the Mustangs had to battle uphill several times. Gerrell McNeil put them on top in the first half, when he banged in four 3-pointers. That 22-20 halftime lead went up in smoke quickly, the Bulldogs scoring the first seven points of the second half.
The Mustangs came back to lead briefly in the third quarter but found themselves down 46-38 with 5:13 left after a couple of sweet moves to the basket by Foday Sillah, who had eight of his 14 points in the final quarter.
The Bulldogs appeared to put it away when Cameron Jones caught the Mustangs napping on an inbounds pass from the far baseline. He fired ahead to Sillah, who laid it in for a 50-46 lead.
That’s when the magic began to happen for the Mustangs. Harley drained a fallback 3-pointer from the top of the key with a defender in his face, just one of the tough, tough shots he hit.
“The last couple minutes we got locked in,” Harley said. “We made our plays work, we made some good shots, we had good stops; we played really good team basketball at that point.”
Fans on both sides were going wild throughout the final quarter but Harley didn’t seem to notice.
“I just dialed in,” he said. “I told myself, I’ve gotta hit these shots, and I was locked in.”
Harley has hit big shots before. He made a couple down the stretch as a sophomore when he scored a career-high 23 points to help Berks Catholic come back to beat Wyomissing. But he’s never experienced anything quite like this, celebrating among a sea of people at center court.
“It’s not a thing that happens every game,” he said. “It’s just a great feeling.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Wilson | 12 | 8 | 19 | 13 | 52 |
| Gov. Mifflin | 13 | 9 | 14 | 18 | 54 |
| Wilson (1-0, 3-1) | Gov. Mifflin (1-0, 2-1) |
| Jones | 3 | 3-4 | 9 | Harley | 7 | 4-6 | 22 | ||
| Coldren | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | D. McNeil | 3 | 0-2 | 7 | ||
| Harding | 8 | 1-3 | 19 | G. McNeil | 4 | 3-4 | 15 | ||
| Melograna | 1 | 0-0 | 3 | Woolwine | 0 | 2-4 | 2 | ||
| Odiale | 1 | 2-2 | 4 | Ziolkowski | 0 | 0-0 | 0 | ||
| Breslin | 1 | 0-0 | 3 | Minick | 1 | 2-2 | 5 | ||
| Sillah | 7 | 0-1 | 14 | Kapoor | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Price | 1 | 1-2 | 3 |
| Totals | 21 | 6-10 | 52 | Totals | 16 | 12-20 | 54 |