Lower Merion completes three-peat in style at Penncrest’s expense

LOWER MERION — No matter how hard Penncrest tries, there is no happy ending, just heartbreak, when it plays Lower Merion.

And so, it was here Wednesday night.

Instead of losing dramatically at the buzzer, which is where the series was stuck for the last handful of games, the Lions welcomed the final buzzer as the Aces put together a game for the ages to win their third straight Central League championship.

Jack Forrest scored a game-high 17 points, Steve Payne contributed a dozen points and seven assists and Josh Martin added 10 points and 12 rebounds to lead Lower Merion to a runaway 63-31 triumph, the Aces’ sixth Central League title in eight years.

What was left of the partisan crowd began singing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” with much too much time left on this school night.

“This is a three-peat and it’s amazing,” Payne said. “This group of guys, we’ve been together forever. Five freshmen made the team in freshmen year. Me, Jack Forrest, Theo Henry, Darryl Taylor and Matt O’Connor. We came a long way. I’m just happy I can celebrate this moment with them.”

It was another tough ending for the Lions and Mike Doyle, the relentless coach and social studies teacher who stopped counting victories long before he reached 200.

The Lions have run a respectable offense against man-to-man defense. They came up empty looking against the 2-3 zone Gregg Downer and the Aces switched into and out of at a dizzying pace in leading from start to finish.

“We really felt confident against them playing zone,” Doyle said. “It was like they were just hoping we missed shots. And unfortunately, we did. I had us just 1-for-18 on threes. You can’t get a worse shooting night than that. It was very disappointing. The last five times we’ve played them it’s literally been a buzzer-beater, one-possession game. We’ve been in this championship game the last three years, and we just came out flat.”

The Lions (17-6) were in a 10-0 hole before all of the spectators settled into their seats. It was Lower Merion 17, Lions senior Malcolm Williams 2, with 52 seconds left in the opening frame.

“They just outplayed us,” said senior Matt Arbogast, who led the Lions with 15 points and nine rebounds. “They just took over when they got off to that start. It wasn’t like our other games. We didn’t play well, and they came out and played great. But we still have basketball to play. We still can win the district championship.”

The Lions, the fourth seed in District 1 Class 5A, will host No. 13 Pottstown in a first-round game next Wednesday.

Click HERE to read the full article.

Lower Merion’s Julian Hairston floats to the hoop for a layup in the second quarter of the Aces’ 63-31 dismantling of Penncrest in the Central League final at Harriton Wednesday night. (Pete Bannan/Digital First Media)