Langan helps Garnet Valley enact an old script against Fords

HAVERFORD — Through the Mike Brown era of Garnet Valley basketball, the blueprint has been simple.

Usually, and fortunately, there has been a standout guard. Always, they have been surrounded by players willing to do the dirty work, to screen at will, and ever ready to shoot from behind the 3-point line when the ball finds them.

New year, new masks, same old Garnet Valley.

Tuesday, Justin Langan put on display his offseason growth, scoring 14 points to go with 13 rebounds in a 54-44 win over Haverford in a meeting of PIAA Class 6A qualifiers last year.

Langan was a little used bench piece last season for the Central League regular-season champion, averaging 3.8 points per game and hitting 19 3-pointers. As players have moved on, through graduation or second-leading scorer Neel Beniwal’s transfer to Phelps School, others have assumed larger roles, as the older players did a year ago, and the generation before, and so on.

Langan showed he isn’t just able to fill Chris Coyne’s void in the lane in doing the dirty work on the boards. He can also create off the dribble, as in a blow-by at the first-half buzzer, and a catch and shoot off a slip-screen from Carl Schaller to end the third.

“My dad’s been on me about that one in the scouting report,” Langan said of working off the dribble. “Last year, I was in mainly to shoot the ball. So this summer, I was working on trying to get the ball to the rim so that it’s harder to scout me. I tried to add that in and keep the shot going as well.”

That last basket was particularly clutch. The Jags (3-0, 3-0 Central) led by eight at halftime, 29-21. But the Fords surged in the third to tie the game at 33, with a half-dozen chances to take the lead. Garnet Valley had just two points in the frame until Langan stepped out and buried his third of four triples on the day.

“Carl runs our offense, he’s obviously the guy who handles the ball,” Langan said. “And that creates opportunities for other guys, so no matter who we lose – obviously losing Neel was really big – but it’s the next-man-up mentality, and he motivates us every day and practice and keeps us going.”

That left the door open for Schaller to put his stamp on the fourth quarter. The All-Delco point guard had five points through three quarters, playing off the ball and deferring to his eventual replacement, sophomore Max Koehler. But he found Langan for a 3-pointer early in the fourth, then drove to the hole for an and-1 to make it 42-36.

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