Fleetwood Hustles Past Garden Spot As Tigers’ Playoff Resume Only Improves Following Decisive 20-Point Victory Over 5A Nonconference Opponent
Written by: Andy Herr on January 30, 2024
Up until about a week ago, there may have been some debate fermenting beneath the surface in District 3 boys’ basketball circles as to whether or not the Berks Catholic Saints were legitimately the best squad found in classes 1A thru 6A within the mid-state. Certainly in 4A in particular, Berks Catholic’s home classification, there wasn’t much of any sort of debate quite frankly as the Saints were found rolling through their regular season slate while en route to boasting about being District 3’s lone unbeaten team if they chose to do so, vaulting all the way up to an unquestioned #1 slot amongst the 4A crop. In fact, the team who had largely been on their heels throughout the season, the Octorara Braves, fell victim to the Saints by 33-points in a mid-December meeting between the #1 and #2 teams holding firm in the 4A power rankings.
However, if there was any sort of trepidation or hesitation regarding Berks Catholic, that would have had to come up during this last week.
On Tuesday evening last week, Berks Catholic hosted the defending 6A state title holders, the Reading Red Knights, in a game that was understandably met with nothing but the upmost anticipation and rightfully so. And while the Saints would go on to knock off their public-school neighbors from the city by virtue of a dynamite 61-59 final verdict, perhaps the overarching storyline through all of it was that Kingston McKoy, the Saints’ wiry sophomore talent with an incredibly high ceiling ahead in his athletic future, suffered a leg injury which will cruelly keep him out of the lineup for the remainder of this season unfortunately.
Now granted, while Berks Catholic would obviously love to enjoy McKoy’s services as the oncoming battles are only going to intensity in size and stature from here on out, the Saints have seemed no worse for the wear since his untimely departure all things being said given how the Saints entered this week still unblemished, sporting a perfect 17-0 overall record, after emerging victorious in their other three games last week post-Reading High.
But then again, one could perhaps argue that the District3-4A door was suddenly opened, albeit by maybe even the slimmest of margins, with Berks Catholic appearing to be somewhat more vulnerable given such an unfortunate turn of events with having a key cog now out of the rotation. Among those looking to ascend? Surely the Fleetwood Tigers no doubt.
While Fleetwood’s appearance near the top of the District 3 standings may be a surprise in some regards a wider audience, their performance put forth thus far through the first two months of the campaign has been anything but a mystery. After all, it’s hard to argue with a 15-2 overall clip that currently has you sitting at the #3 hole in district power points entering this week. However, if there was a cavity on the Tigers’ resume thus far? The Lancaster-Lebanon League ironically enough.
Although Fleetwood came into Monday with that sultry 15-2 mark, the Tigers only matched up against two L-L League foes this season. And wouldn’t you know it, but those affairs just so happened to make up the pair of Fleetwood defeats that came at the hands of aforementioned Octorara, along with the Manheim Central Barons, a 5A club near the top of their district rankings respectively as well.
Needless to say, when the Garden Spot Spartans came calling into the Tigers’ house to start the week on Monday evening, an L-L outfit that has already made some of their home conference’s better teams sweat it out against them over the course of this season already, the Spartans seemed poised to enter the 2024-25 campaign as one of arguably the most exciting squads coming back into the fold given that Garden Spot returns just about the entirety of it’s current production next season. And while Spot’s playoff fortunes for this season aren’t totally out of the realm of possibility, the fact of the matter was that needed to get started ASAP in that regard. Of course, with there being no time like the present, if Garden Spot could knock off a surging Fleetwood team and insert another L-L dagger into the Tigers’ ship, that certainly wouldn’t hurt matters when it came to the Spartans entering the final two weeks of the regular season with some hay still left in their barn.
However, while there most certainly figures to be far brighter days in Garden Spot’s future moving forward here down the line, the Fleetwood Tigers to their credit would make sure that Monday night would not be one of them. And with the victory, Fleetwood was able to avoid being tripped up by what would have been a triumvirate of L-L League teams this season.
Early on, the hosts could not have gotten out to a much quicker start had they drawn up the script themselves.
In terms of the specifics involved, Fleetwood would promptly start the evening’s affairs with a 6-0 bulge up on the scoreboard that was punctuated with a bucket inside the painted area tallied by Nate Herb, the location on the court where the Tigers largely dominated things from the start, middle, and end of the night.
However, as he has done so often this season, Garden Spot’s Jace Conrad wasn’t about to let his team fall victim to an early onslaught if he himself could possibly help it.
With that in mind, seeing the Spartans’ uber-talented junior two-guard rise and fire in a smooth pullup jumper to whittle the Tigers’ lead in half, 8-4, with 4:10 left in the opening period seemed nothing if not apropos.
Yet while Conrad would go to tally team-high scoring honors on Monday night with a sensational 26-point outburst, he somehow was not the leading man here in Berks County.
For that, the starring role would be found in one Aiden Soumas, the Tigers’ senior forward, as the newest member of the Fleetwood 1,000-point club tallied a bucket inside which awarded him his 1,000th and 1,001st career points, halting the game for a deserved photo-op with family, with the Tigers now in front by a 12-4 difference with 2:07 left in the opening frame. However, not even a minute later after the brief stoppage would Soumas then proceed to step out from beyond the arc and bury a trifecta to assist in the Tigers’ cause, making it a 15-7 ballgame before the final quarter would expire not long afterwards with Fleetwood out in front, 15-9.
Granted, while Fleetwood had largely been able to bully the opposition into that six-point lead at the end of the first session behind the aid of nearly all their points being scored from point-blank range, things had started to turn against the hosts once the second stanza got underway in earnest.
Sure enough, behind a wonderfully executed two-man game between Conrad and fellow junior, Ryder Hertzler, did the Spartans race back within a pair at 17-15 with 5:30 still left to play in the opening half. Then, if Conrad wasn’t distributing, he was equally adept at doing the honors himself as a kick-out trey knocked down by Conrad would later trim the difference down to the slimmest of margins, 19-18, before another Conrad 3-ball would knot things up at 21-apiece with 4:05 still left to play in the second quarter by that point.
Suffice to say, things had now appeared to fully tilt in Garden Spot’s direction by and large. Well, that was until a timely late rally authored by the Tigers would put things well out of reach.
Sure enough, not even a minute of game time later even amid the Garden Spot flurry, would Fleetwood jump back out to five-point advantage behind the assist of a Liam Hilburt 3-ball, making it a 26-21 contest.
But they weren’t done there.
Not when Soumas, well on his way to tying his career-high at 26-points by the end of the night, got done landing another first half triple in his own right, making it a sizable 31-21 Fleetwood cushion before the second quarter rally would conclude with a finalized 12-0 spurt which ushered the Tigers into the break with the 33-21 lead to totally back control of the game itself.
But in the second half, it was essentially much of the same when it came to Fleetwood just simply exerting their collective will upon their guests.
Case in point, a three-point play on the Tigers’ initial offensive possession of the third quarter via the efforts of 6’0 senior guard, Nate Herb, propelling the hosts out to what was their largest lead of the evening at that point. From there, Herb would continue to remain as white-hot as his jersey color as a Herb-led 5-0 salvo to begin the third quarter made it a commanding 38-21 Fleetwood lead for a game that was tied up at 21-21 not all that long ago. In fact, the Tigers’ lead would soon balloon out to nearly 20 at 44-25 following yet another Soumas bucket inside, forcing Garden Spot to try and see if a brief timeout could perhaps slow down the current Fleetwood boulder rolling downhill at a rapid pace.
Unfortunately for the group from New Holland, that too didn’t seem as if could take away Fleetwood’s shine on this particular evening as it were.
Indeed, the Tigers’ lead would later hit that 20-point threshold which is where things remained with the final eight minutes getting set to kick off with Fleetwood well on their way towards a victory over a 5A club given their 52-32 advantage after an utterly dominant third quarter showing up and down the gamut.
To their credit though, even with the eventual outcome being nothing more than a formality by that point, the Garden Spot troops continued to fight and claw inside the final quarter of play on Monday night.
In that regard, it’d be easy to point to three consecutive fearless Jace Conrad takes to the cup, the last of which made it a 57-38 ballgame with 5:30 left to play, before a solid take by Jeff St. Jean, author of a solid night in his own right from the guard position, made it a 58-40 contest roughly 30 seconds later.
That said, Fleetwood too would be equally as eager to show off some of their wares inside the waning stages.
From the Tigers’ perspective, it’d be hard to ignore Mason Senna’s trifecta which later pushed the gap back over the 20-point hill, 63-42, as the Fleetwood sophomore guard was able to pepper in a bucket from beyond the arc once he too got his opportunity to fire in a long ball.
And speaking of trifectas, you also have to distribute kudos in Trenton Hoober’s direction inside the final minute as another member of the promising Spartans’ underclassmen cast and crew was able to crack into the scoring column with a 3-ball of his own which in turn concluded the evening’s scoring with Fleetwood being able to make a dominating statement by a virtue of a thoroughly commanding win over a solid 5A foe in Garden Spot as the Tigers undoubtedly earned every bit the spoils of when it came to the 67-47 final count at the end of the night and the horn blaring out.
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