Painful learning lessons paying off for Eagles, as they once did for their coach

Sometimes, Matt Ashcroft was the saying the other night, after his Exeter basketball team punched its ticket to the state final, you have to lose to learn how win.

He rattled off each of the Eagles’ setbacks this season and explained in detail how his squad learned from each. They grew as a team after every defeat and used those experiences to propel them into the PIAA Class 5A championship game Friday night at Giant Center at 8.

That’s the way it was at Central Catholic, where Ashcroft was a starting guard as a freshman: He and his young teammates learned as they lost.

And they lost a lot. And they heard about it, at max volume, from their demanding coach, Snip Esterly. They made the kind of mistakes expected when you have freshmen and sophomores on the floor. Esterly pushed them hard and they learned.

Ashcroft often shared the court with two other ninth-graders, Colin Naugle and Nick Rossignoli, guys he had been playing with and against since their CYO days in third grade. They all lived in the Exeter school district at played at St. Catherine’s or Holy Guardian Angels.

They took their lumps together as the Cards finished 12-14. It was the first losing season Esterly had endured as a head coach. Nineteen years later it’s still the only one.

Ashcroft, Naugle, Rossignoli and Alex Franklin, a year ahead of them, learned quickly. The following season they won a division title and 21 games. The next year they went 28-2 and added county and district championships.

By the time ‘Ash,’ ‘Big Red’ and ‘Roz’ were seniors they were the top three scorers on a team that went 30-4. They won their final game together: The PIAA Class A championship.

Sixteen years later, almost to the day, Ashcroft heads back a state final, this time as the head coach. Naugle and Rossignoli, members of his coaching staff, will be with him when the Eagles face Imhotep Charter.

“I’m lucky to have all those guys,” he said of a staff that also includes Konlan Krick, Tyler Shappell, Shawn Seidel and his younger brother, Justin.

“It’s been an absolute blessing. I’m so lucky that I’ve spent the last six months, six days a week, with my best friend, my brother. It’s been really special.”

Ashcroft draws often from those Central days, and the principles he learned under Esterly.

He sees a lot of parallels between the journey he and his Central teammates took and the one his Exeter team is on.

The Eagles also learned by losing – and had plenty of opportunities.

Few recall now but seniors Teddy Snyder, Zyion Paschall and Anthony Caccese and junior Alex Kelsey were part of a team that went 3-14 two seasons ago. They lost 12 times in their final 13 games. Ashcroft is still pained by a loss at Berks Catholic on a tip-in at the buzzer.

The Eagles cracked the state tournament last season for the first time in 23 years but they didn’t exactly go in with a head of steam. They lost six of their final seven regular season games after Joey Schlaffer, their No. 2 scorer, was injured and lost for the season.

They lost at the buzzer in the Berks Conference semifinals, then twice in the district tournament. They entered the state tournament as the No. 7 seed and finished with 15 losses and a losing record.

There were plenty of teaching moments. The Eagles learned how to persevere in tough times, how to deal with adversity, how to come together when the odds were stacked against them. They have faced similar adversity this season. Despite the 27 wins and the district championship there have been tough times.

Blowing a 10-point lead against Reading High in the county final still stings. There was trepidation heading into districts without their No. 2 scorer Reece Garvin, who was injured.

That 30-win season at Central wasn’t smooth sailing all the time, either. The Cards took two losses in the first eight days of the season and a midseason loss against rival Holy Name.

“We never panicked,” Ashcroft recalled. “We were battle-tested. We saw the bigger picture (when we lost some early games).”

Central Catholic beat Dubois Central Catholic 58-33 in the state championship game at Bryce Jordan Center in 2007. Naugle had 19 points and 15 rebounds; Ashcroft drained four 3’s. It was no contest.

“We played one of the most perfect games that we had in our four years,” he said.

His Exeter team will need to do that against nationally ranked Imhotep Charter: Play as close to perfect as possible.

“I don’t remember being nervous leading into that state championship game (at Central), because we were all best friends and we all cared about each other. We loved each other and we were going to do anything we could to go out and get that win for one another.”