Boys Basketball: Districts Preview – Penncrest hoping to turn around recent play - PA

Mike Doyle has been at the helm of Penncrest for 250-some games over 11 seasons. In that time, his team had never gone without a made 3-pointer in a game … until last Sunday, when they were blanked from behind the arc by Conestoga in a 55-33 loss in the Central League semifinals.

Despite that loss – the Lions’ fourth straight and fifth in their last six outings, Doyle isn’t worried about his No. 11 Penncrest team as they head into a date with No. 22 Central Bucks West to open Districts.

For a team that has hit 118 triples this season and boasts two of Delco’s – and, as Doyle quickly points out, Southeastern Pennsylvania’s – most prolific 3-point shooters in Nolan Carroll (50 made 3s) and Mike Doyle (43), he’s fine with viewing the Conestoga game as an aberration.

The Pioneers, the tournament’s No. 1 seed, employed a different strategy against Penncrest, taking their lumps in the paint with bigs Rahmi Halaby and Ben Casanova, but completely negating the Lions’ perimeter players. With the Lions (15-8, 10-7) slow to adjust to that approach, they fell with their lowest point production of the season by far.

The loss is the latest installment in a late-season swoon that has involved a 1-5 record down the stretch. All five of those losses, including two to Conestoga, have come to teams qualifying for districts.

That streak comes on the heels of a six-game winning run and a stretch of nine wins in 10 outings, one that may have fostered an inflated sense of confidence.

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Penncrest’s Ben Casanova hopes to help the Lions shoot their way out of a slump in the Districts meeting with CB West. (Times Staff / JULIA WILKINSON)