Seasoned foe, hostile crowd, part of Jason Bieber’s plan to prep Bullets for postseason

By Sean McBryan — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent

COLUMBIA — A peculiar sound rang out amid the raucous noise produced by Columbia’s fans Thursday night during the Crimson Tide’s 69-38 girls basketball victory over Brandywine Heights.

“Turbo! Turbo! Turbo!”

It wasn’t because Tide fans have an affinity for vehicles equipped with turbochargers; it was the student section attempting to rattle Brandywine’s 5-11 guard Addison Benner, who goes by that nickname.

“When I around seven months old I would climb on everything in the house and go in all of the cabinets,” Benner said, explaining how she gained her nickname. “My parents would put me in one of those exersaucers; I would spin it around so fast it would lift off of the ground. My dad said I looked like a ‘Turbo.’ The name stuck. A lot of people think it’s my real name.” 

The fans likely weren’t expecting the reaction the sophomore gave: a grin. Unfazed, she scored 13 of her team-high 15 points in the second half, acting as if the taunts were cheers.

“The energy is awesome,” first-year Brandywine head coach Jason Bieber said of the atmosphere. “It’s a good experience. Actually, I thought we handled that part of it pretty well. There were no reactions to the student section or anything like that. That’s a growing point moving forward.”

Bieber is used to crowds such as Thursday’s; he coached 13 seasons at Class 6A Boyertown and won the PIAA championship with the Bears in 2017. There’s a reason he decided to apply to the job at Brandywine Heights, which hadn’t had a winning season since 2014-15 until last year. The talent was evident.

“I think that if we play up to our full potential there is no reason we can’t go as far if not further than last year,” Benner said “We just have to play together as a team.”

Benner’s poise shined through when she was a freshman; playing on varsity seemed natural. She averaged 14.1 points per game to lead the team, which went 18-8 and made the state playoffs.

Despite the graduation of No. 2 scorer Emily Savitz (11.5 per game) the Bullets have had a more balanced scoring attack this season.

In addition to Benner there are three other return starters: top rebounder Avery Potteiger, floor general and defensive whiz Olivia Moyer, and sharpshooting Dana Wartzenluft. Grace Potteiger slid into the fifth starting spot and Seanna Daubert has a significant role off the bench.

The Bullets won the Hamburg Tip-Off Tournament, beating Tri-Valley and Annville-Cleona.

The competition level took an uptick with Columbia, which went 23-5 last season. Standout junior twins Brie Droege – who scored 27 points Thursday, including her 1,000th – and Brooke Droege (17 points) got free in transition and from beyond the arc.

The Tide (1-0) forced Brandywine into 30 turnovers, capitalizing on its length and a full-court press the Bullets could not figure out.

It was close for a while; Columbia led 12-8 after one quarter.

The turnovers started to mount in the second quarter as the Bullets (2-1) had problems making passes over the Tide’s longer defenders. Brie Droege had eight points, Brooke Droege had seven, and Kailey Soto, who finished with 17 points, had six in the quarter. The Tide outscored the Bullets 22-8 and took a 34-16 lead into halftime.

That quarter is when the game became a teaching opportunity for Bieber, but it was also a bit of an outlier. The Bullets hung tough in the second half and were outscored only 21-13 in the third quarter and 14-9 in the fourth. A lot of that was due to Benner’s scoring but the offense started to come around.

“There for a little while Addison had a mismatch,” Bieber said. “That’s where we want to clear out and let her play one-on-one a little bit.

“The kids are doing a great job, but they’re still trying to figure out the system and how to go. So when you play a team that’s pressuring you like this, it’s sometimes a little bit of a struggle to move the ball around and really know where you’re supposed to go.”

The defending Berks IV champs aren’t going to surprise anyone this season, not with the majority of their starting lineup back and a new head coach with a PIAA championship on his resume. Gov. Mifflin head coach Mike Clark, whose team won the Berks title last season, has labeld Brandywine a championship contender.

“We like having the target on our backs because that’s when the expectations are high,” Benner said. “And we need to perform when they’re high.”

The beginning of the season is about ironing out problems such as turnovers and building team chemistry. Bieber loaded up the front end of the Bullets’ schedule to prepare for stiff competition in the postseason.

“Our team goal is to obviously win games, but we want to come together and create a family atmosphere together, too,” Benner said. “My personal goals are to help my team out the best I can; if I’m able to help my team win that’s all that matters.”

Columbia was the first test; next is CMIT Academy in Laurel, Md., on Saturday and Pope John Paul II on Monday. By season’s end the Bullets hope to be a well-oiled machine. Maybe even a turbocharger.

	1	2	3	4	Final
Columbia	12	22	21	14	69
Brandywine Heights	8	8	13	9	38

Bullets (2-1)	FG	FT	3’s	A	R	Points
Benner	4-9	4-5	3-4	1	5	15
A. Potteiger	2-4	2-6	0-0	0	9	6
Wartzenluft	0-3	6-8	0-3	4	6	6
Moyer	1-5	2-2	1-3	0	1	5
Daubert	0-1	2-2	0-0	0	2	2
G. Potteiger	1-3	0-0	0-0	0	2	2
Stoudt	1-2	0-1	0-0	1	1	2
Ray	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	1	0
Crist	0-0	0-0	0-0	1	0	0
Henry	0-1	0-0	0-0	0	0	0
Longacre	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0
Totals	9-28	16-24	4-10	7	27-34	38

Tide (1-0)	FG	FT	3’s	A	R	Points
Bri. Droege	8-21	8-11	3-7	1	3	27
Bro. Droege	6-18	4-6	1-7	4	5	17
Soto	5-10	5-7	2-6	1	2	17
Smith	0-2	3-6	0-0	0	6	3
Krow	1-2	0-0	0-0	0	1	2
Garcia	1-1	0-0	0-0	0	1	2
Young	0-4	0-0	0-4	2	1	0
Gamby	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	1	0
Gambler	0-0	1-2	0-0	0	5	1
Burke	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0
Totals	21-58	21-32	6-24	8	25-29	69

Turnovers: Brandywine Heights 30, Columbia 11.