Some of those in attendance might have been surprised when Delaware Valley Regional High School’s boys basketball team erupted for a 45-point second half, but the Terriers weren’t.
And they’re not surprised they’ve reached the county championship game, either.
Sixth-seeded Delaware Valley surged past No. 7 Vernon for a 66-42 victory in the Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex semifinals on Saturday at Wallkill Valley Regional High School.
The Terriers (17-6) advance to meet top-seeded Hunterdon Central, which dispatched Hackettstown 57-42, in the county final 7 p.m. Friday at Phillipsburg High School.
Delaware Valley was frosty to start the game, trailing 10-6 after the first quarter.
The Terriers got a spark right before halftime, however, as senior Kevin Scanlan saved the ball from going out of bounds and found Christian Hlinka at the top of the arc. The junior drained a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to tie the score at 21. The late basket lifted the mood in the locker room.
“That gave us a lot of momentum,” sophomore Joe Cansfield said. “Christian has hit a lot of big shots for us.”
The energy carried through intermission as the Terriers quickly caught fire and dominated the third quarter. Delaware Valley went on a 14-3 streak to open the second half, which included back-to-back 3s from senior Alex Ferrera and two straight layups by classmate Brian Godown to stretch the lead to 35-24.
“We stuck to our game plan,” Terriers coach Mike DePaolo said. “We didn’t knock down shots early in the first half that we normally make. We were getting good looks, but it seemed like there was a lid on the rim … We came out (of the half) with confidence knowing that the percentages were going to come back to us.”
“We just came together as a team,” said junior Brandon Bernhardt, who finished with 12 points. “We started making the extra pass and once we started doing that, stuff just started falling.”
The Terriers didn’t let up, either. They used an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter to turn the contest into a total rout. The final 24-point margin was also Del Val’s largest lead of the day.
“Coach sets us up to make a lot of plays,” said Cansfield, who had all 12 of his points in the fourth quarter. “He just puts the ball in our hands and we make plays and look for each other. When we’re trusting each other and hitting shots, not a lot of teams can beat us.”
Ferrera and Scanlan each finished with 10 points for Del Val. Sean Sabol paced Vernon (17-7) with 15 points.
“I told the guys at the beginning of the year that it doesn’t matter to me who scores, as long as we defend and we share the ball,” DePaolo said. “Today was a perfect example of that. Kevin Scanlan is our go-to player, but he was struggling, so other guys stepped up … We’ve had guys pick each other up all year, so it was nice to see it come together in a game like this.”
Reaching the county final is another huge accomplishment for the Terriers, who went 6-16 last winter but turned around to win the Skyland Conference Valley Division this year.
“(Getting to the H/W/S final) was our goal because a lot of people were counting us out,” Cansfield said. “They were putting us last in the division, last in the county. We had that chip on our shoulder at the beginning of the season and we just carried it through.”
“No one expected us to have the year we’ve had. No one expected us to sniff the county finals,” DePaolo said. “ … Our guys are riding high on a lot of confidence just from the year we’ve had — from the struggles they had last year to where we’re at. We knew that we could have a good year. It’s nice to show everyone that we are capable of turning things around.”
Kyle Craig may be reached at kcraig@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KyleCraigSports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
