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Wilson Encounters Much Improved Cedar Crest Team, Responds With Same Familiar Toughness As Bulldogs Mount Key Late-Game Rally To Move Into District 3-6A Quarterfinal Round
 

Wilson Encounters Much Improved Cedar Crest Team, Responds With Same Familiar Toughness As Bulldogs Mount Key Late-Game Rally To Move Into District 3-6A Quarterfinal Round

Written by: Andy Herr on February 22, 2023

 

There are some out there who will say that the postseason is in theory a “second season.” Or, more succinctly put, a second chance to try and make amends for previous shortcomings that occurred earlier during the season. And man alive, did Cedar Crest’s trip over to Wilson on Tuesday night fit ever that description and then some as the Falcons and Bulldogs helped to raise the curtain on the District 3-6A playoff bracket on Tuesday night in Berks County.

 You see, back on the afternoon of Saturday January 14th, Cedar Crest sauntered into West Lawn to tangle with the Bulldogs for a nonconference test with the Falcons fresh off a tough two-point loss to their Lancaster-Lebanon League Section One rivals in McCaskey just two days previous. However, on that bitterly cold and wind-swept weekend afternoon, Wilson’s eventual final 59-40 triumph over the Falcons somehow seemed rather modest and tame all things considered given the methodical and decisive way in which the Bulldogs effectively controlled and owned the second half, an impressive display where the team from Lebanon County appeared to be rendered without many if any answers to the Wilson-led onslaught as it was taking place.  To be sure, the loss against Wilson would effectively serve as a crossroads type moment for Cedar Crest in how they wished to have their 2022-23 campaign be defined heading down the final half of the regular season slate. And granted, while there would still be an 18-point defeat at the hands of the eventual division champion, Hempfield, six days following the setback against Wilson, an entirely different Falcons’ crew would emerge, a better and cohesive crew, following what was then a three-game losing skid at the time.

In fact, the Falcons’ turnaround would begin taking place just mere hours following the second of their two losses to Hempfield.

For it was there on Saturday the 21st of January where Cedar Crest began playing the best ball of their entire year as evidenced by a decisive and ultra-important 62-46 win over Bishop McDevitt in the annual L-L vs Mid-Penn Shootout held at Manheim Central. From there, the Falcons suddenly morphed into arguably the hottest team that the L-L League could possibly boast about almost overnight as evidenced by their eventual seven-game winning streak that began with the aforementioned conquest of McDevitt, an incredibly strong close to the schedule that saw Cedar Crest clinch their ticket into the sought-after league tournament by righting the earlier wrongs that had plagued them against McCaskey as the Falcons rolled into Lancaster city and rolled out with 61-51 victory that locked the Tornado out of any form of postseason action.

And once in the league playoffs, Cedar Crest would be able to start things off by successfully walking out of the hornet’s nest known as Kreiser Gymnasium unscathed with a victory against the top-seed in this year’s District 3-3A bracket, Columbia, as the Falcons then found themselves just one win shy of reaching the league final by virtue of their 54-40 win over the Crimson Tide. However, in that semifinal round contest, their assignment of trying to topple another #1 seed in the District 3 landscape, this of the 5A variety found in Manheim Central, would come up short as the Barons were able to erase a pair of eight-point deficits in both the first and second halves respectively en route to a 49-46 victory which left the Falcons on the sidelines for the last six days heading into their Tuesday night date with Wilson.

So, without much of a shadow of a doubt, there was more an ample reason as to why this particular meeting with the Bulldogs offered a variety of second chances to Cedar Crest. Yes, against Wilson on the micro, but also on the macro level as well. And if there’s one thing that those who primarily run in L-L circles will tell you, it’s that giving the Falcons a new lease on life isn’t always the wisest of choices should you happen to find yourselves lined up directly opposite of them provided they get the chance.  

However, while they certainly would make Wilson earn every inch of real estate in which the Bulldogs were able to accumulate on Tuesday night, the end result would mirror what had taken place a little more than a month ago, much to the chagrin of the folks donning the color blue.

Out of the chute however, Cedar Crest wasted little to no time when it came to offering up the initial punch of the evening.

There, behind a pair of dead-eye triples splashed in by way of 6’0 junior guard Owen Chernich, the Falcons rolled outward to a strong 8-4 start just three minutes in, a quick blitz that it seemed caught Wilson off guard somewhat.

 Undeterred though, as is some often the case when describing the Bulldogs’ program on a perennial basis, Wilson did not appear phased in the slightest.

For it was immediately on the heels of that aforementioned Falcons’ spurt that the hosts would be able to not only claw back to within a point at 10-9 following a Cam Jones bucket inside with two minutes left to play in the period, but they would then surge in front following a triple knocked down by 6’2 senior sniper Aidan Melograna, making it an impromptu 8-2 Wilson flurry over the course of the final five minutes of the opening stanza with the Bulldogs trotting into the second period with ownership of the 12-10 advantage.

In the second quarter, at least in the early going that is, both teams took their shared turns when it came throwing volleys against the other.

Case in point, following a Jackson Custer 3-ball for Cedar Crest which whittled the Wilson lead down to the slimmest of margins, 14-13, a tough bunny inside tallied by Wilson’s Ofure Odiale not long afterwards upped the Bulldogs’ lead right back to three at 16-13 following the 6’3 senior’s deuce.

Finally, inside the waning stages of the second frame however, Cedar Crest was able to mount a key rally which eventually helped close the books on what had largely been a back-and-forth type of game up until that point.

Sure enough, following five straight points courtesy of 6’2 junior wing Fernando Marquez, the Falcons found themselves playing with the lead at 18-16 with two minutes and change still yet to tick off the second quarter clock. Speaking of Marquez, he would prove himself to be the star which would shine the brightest on this night as he would eventually come away with game-high scoring honors in netting a 17-point effort over the course of the 32 minutes.

From there, the Cedar Crest cushion would swell up to four following a trifecta put home by another of the Falcons’ litany of underclassmen, Danny Speaks, as the 6’0 sophomore made it a 22-18 lead in favor of the visitors with just 1:30 left in the opening half. And while there would be other points scored throughout that final minute and change, Cedar Crest almost certainly had to like their current positioning considering that they found themselves in front by a count of 24-20 on the road at the intermission.

In the third quarter though, the period in which the first meeting between these clubs where things so clearly turned on a dime, Cedar Crest remained just as steadfast when it came to demonstrating this was a whole different Falcons’ squad than what had been on Wilson’s campus previously.

Now sure, there was the pilfer and subsequent run-out layup tallied by Wilson’s Cleveland Harding as the Bulldogs’ heady senior guard helped to raise the curtain on the quarter, but Cedar Crest was able to hold the rope collectively nonetheless.

For proof of that, it’d be easy to cite a pair of Fernando Marquez buckets at two different times during the course of the third which kept the Falcons’ margin at four each time with the most recent example making it a 31-27 Cedar Crest lead.

Then, with a crescendo-like moment, a smooth pullup jumper sunk by one of the very few 12th graders in the Falcons’ lineup, J’Veon Reyes-Vega, made it a 35-27 difference with nary two minutes left to go in the stanza.

Yet even momentum so clearly residing on the Cedar Crest bench at that moment in time, Wilson was about to flex its collective muscle by rattling off a game-altering run which the Falcons simply could not match.

Sure enough, while a wild scrum would ensue that made the orange pill look like something akin to that of a loose bar of soap, a leak-out bucket tallied by Wilson’s Seamus Breslin in transition following the fracas knocked the Falcons’ lead down to 35-30. In fact, when speaking of Breslin directly, he would be the one who would primarily stir the Bulldogs’ drink on this evening as the uber-talented 6’0 senior wing wound end up tallying a team-best 15-point outing to pace the Wilson effort throughout the evening. And from there, following what had felt like a quasi-comfortable cushion which the Falcons were able to rest upon just a few moments earlier, quickly grew much more precarious once the third concluded considering they found themselves having surrendered a 6-0 run which made it a slim 35-33 lead in their favor with just eight minutes left to go in either one of these team’s seasons.

But that Wilson snowball which had been gaining momentum in the latter stages of the third only grew larger and larger once the final quarter rolled around.

In fact, after successfully regaining ownership of the lead on the scoreboard following a layup tallied by Harding which made it 37-35, an Ofure Odiale bucket from point-blank range suddenly made it a 41-35 Bulldogs’ lead with the fourth quarter quickly nearing its halfway mark.

In all, it would prove to be a critical 14-0 Wilson rally which would eventually be Cedar Crest’s demise at the most inopportune time as far as the Falcons’ backers were concerned given that it spanned from the latter stages of the third into the fourth quarters.

And while the visitors would flash that same steely-eyed determination that they always do, a feat best exemplified by a key triple sunk by Marquez that made it a 45-40 ballgame following four successful freebies knocked down by Wilson’s Madyx Gruber previous to that, the elephant still left in the room was that there was only 54.7 seconds left to be played at that juncture.

Unfortunately, for those who had made their way over to West Lawn from Lebanon County on this night, those Marquez points would be the final ones their team would tally when it came to the 2022-23 campaign as an Odiale run-out layup inside the final few seconds effectively served as the exclamation mark on Wilson’s 48-40 triumph over a very game Cedar Crest squad who had clearly grown up over the course of this last month of the season without question. With the victory, the Bulldogs now move onto the quarterfinal round of the 6A bracket where they will engage with an equally strong program, Cumberland Valley, inside the Eagles’ famed “Dome” on Friday night over on the west shore.

Yes, while Tuesday night may have marked the end of the line in Cedar Crest’s journey as far as this season is concerned, the growth which this club showed down the stretch of the season was arguably the most impressive accomplishment that anyone inside the Lancaster-Lebanon League can rightly boast about. Granted, while turning their season around on a dime would be impressive in its own right had it been for a sheer volume of senior leadership or something of the like, the fact of the matter is that the Falcons are still an incredibly young cast whose best days still could very well lie directly in front of them. And while the contributions complied by guys such as J’Veon Reyes-Vega and Nolan Groff will have to be replaced respectively, they are just two of the three seniors found on this Falcons’ roster. So, as mentioned off top, when dealing with the prospect of encountering a Cedar Crest outfit who routinely plays with boulders on their shoulders, the way in which this season ended, with two straight losses against Manheim Central and Wilson respectively, will surely fuel their fire over the course of the summer and preseason to where Cedar Crest almost certainly figures to be one of the preseason darlings heading into next year to grab some serious hardware once the dust finally settles sometime in the year 2024. Suffice to say, having the Falcons simmer and stew on this finish for the better part of nine months is something that can’t possibly make the rest of the Lancaster-Lebanon League exactly feel very warm and fuzzy.

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