Ruben Rodriguez caps magical week with yet more court wizardry

By Jason Guarente — MikeDragoSports.com senior correspondent

Everyone knows about Ruben Rodriguez’s points. Whether it was the 50 he scored in one game or the 1,000-plus he has for his career, that’s what grabbed headlines this week.

It’s understandable. Those are magical numbers.

Whenever Reading High’s junior is finished wearing the red and black, the number he puts on the banner in the rafters won’t be what people remember first. It’ll be the plays. The wow plays. The ones that bring fans out of their seats.

Rodriguez had two buzzer-beaters and one acrobatic, coast-to-coast layup to help Reading hold off Archbishop Wood 64-58 in a rematch of the PIAA Class 6A championship game in the Geigle Classic finale Saturday night.

All of those plays were important. They were exciting. They weren’t even at the top of the list of wow plays.

“When I see him doing stuff like that, it used to be a surprise to me,” teammate Myles Grey said. “Now I’ve seen it so much it’s just natural. It’s just something that he does.”

There was a ball that Rodriguez deflected into the backcourt that looked like a lost cause. It was flying toward the baseline and seemed certain to bounce into the stands.

Rodriguez chased after it, chased it down and flipped a behind-the-back pass toward the rim. Joey Chapman was waiting there. Two points.

“I knew that I was fast enough to get it,” Rodriguez said. “I just had to make sure I threw it in bounds. I hoped somebody was going to be there. Gladly it went into Joey’s hands.”

Catching up to the ball was impressive enough. The pass couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I don’t know how it went there,” Rodriguez said with a smile. “It just happened.”

Later in the game there was an ill-advised pass that floated high in the air toward Rodriguez’s man near midcourt. He boxed out like a cornerback defending a Hail Mary, won the ball and spun in the other direction for a fastbreak dunk.

Rodriguez gave credit to his football teammates, Amier Burdine and DeShawn Wilson, both defensive backs, for teaching him that eye-opening maneuver.

“The save today. Unreal,” Reading coach Rick Perez said. “The steal and the dunk. Who does that? I’m just his biggest fan. Those are things that you can’t coach.”

It’s hard to remember a team having a more eventful week than Reading just experienced.

Grey set a school record with 10 3-pointers against Twin Valley Tuesday. Rodriguez dropped in a school-record 50 points against Daniel Boone Wednesday. Then Rodriguez surpassed the 1,000-point plateau against Vertical Academy and star Mikey Williams at Santander Arena Friday. That’s a whole season’s worth of highlights clustered together.

If it were any other team, one might wonder if Reading had enough energy left to take down a Philadelphia power like Archbishop Wood. The Red Knights are never out of energy.

“It’s just how we practice,” Rodriguez said. “We always practice hard. Coach ‘P’ makes sure if he feels like we’re slow in practice he pushes the pace. We knew this week was going to be hard. We had to keep our tank full and push through.”

The rematch against Wood came 10 months after Reading prevailed 58-57 for the state title in March. It was tight the entire way. Neither team held a lead larger than six points.

Reading used a 6-0 run, which included Rodriguez’s steal and dunk, to pull ahead 51-46 with six minutes left. After Wood cut the deficit to one point with 1:43 remaining, Reading made 8-of-10 foul shots to seal it.

Rodriguez finished with a team-high 17 points. Grey and Daniel Alcantara each had 15. 

Reading (15-2) went 4-0, set two school records, reached one milestone, defeated an NBA prospect and one of the state’s premier programs in five days.

“Looking at the start of the week, I never would have pictured it ending like this,” Grey said. “I like to live in the moment. Take each game and look around me. Experience what’s going on, hear the crowd, hear my teammates. I know it’s not going to last forever. That’s what I’ve been doing lately.”

This is a special time at Reading. That fact isn’t lost on anyone lucky enough to play at the Geigle each game.

Between the buzzer-beaters and the two defensive gems Rodriguez essentially stole eight points from Wood. Reading won by six. The Red Knights needed all of that wizardry.

“I have the best seat in the house,” Perez said. “I get to watch him grow. The way he plays is his personality. He’s a silly guy. Sometimes he’ll do some things that make you want to pull your hair out. But you’ve got to trust in what he’s going to do next.”

Whatever Rodriguez does next will be worth watching. It could be another one of those plays.