E-town/Penn Wood notes

This week's Chronicle has plenty of coverage on the Bears' loss to Penn Wood Saturday, but I wanted to pass along a few of my thoughts that either weren't right for the paper or couldn't fit. That's the beauty of the blog, people. Without further ado, the ramblings of a schlub:

• The site of the game was awesome. Spring-Ford has some incredible sports venues. Walking in, I noticed their baseball STADIUM...not a field, a stadium. Probably the nicest high school baseball complex I've seen yet. Made me wish I went to Spring-Ford. The gym was also nice. It was the new style of gym with the two tiers and the scoreboard hanging from the ceiling above midcourt. The progress of high school facilities baffles me. I remember playing in a gym/auditorium with wooden bleachers that you had to manually pull out and one little scoreboard on the wall. But boy did that place get loud.

• It was also the first high school gym I'd been to that played music between quarters and during timeouts. Pretty cool. Gave the game a college-level feel.

• Paid attendance for the day was over 600, which was surprising to me. I think they may have added the two games together (there was a girls game before the Bears played), but nevertheless I saw a lot of E-town fans that made the 80-mile trek to root on the Bears.

• As for the game itself, I've gotta say that I wasn't very impressed with Penn Wood. Are they good? You bet. But are they a top-10 team in the state? I find that hard to believe. I think if they didn't play in the same division as teams like Chester and Pennsbury, they wouldn't have gotten that ranking. I thought they were a sloppy, undisciplined team that wins on athleticism alone. That said, they have a ton of height, which is one of the biggest advantages you can have at the high school level. They earned a ton of second-chance points by hitting the offensive glass very, very hard.

• One player that did impress me with Penn Wood's Duane Johnson. He's been their leading scorer all year, but I think he almost single-handedly won that game for them in the second half. He was a monster on the offensive glass and is a very athletic, skilled player. In my opinion, he was the best player on the court. Penn Wood's 6'7" freshman, Shawn Oakman, might not have scored a lot (4 points), but he's going to be very good. He's not as clumsy as I thought he would be. He has a very solid frame and once he gets it into his head that he can dominate, he'll be tough to stop. Look out for him the next 3 years. And look out for Penn Wood as a whole. The reason they were sloppy is because they are so darn young. Once they get a little seasoning, they're going to be dangerous. I mean challenging Chester dangerous.

• As for the Bears, I think the best word to describe them is resilient. They struggled shooting and rebounding in the first half, but made up for that with some suffocating defense, and that is what kept them in the game. The problem was that they shot around 27 percent in the first half and couldn't get a rebound, so they were essentially running one-shot possessions, and weren't making many of those shots. But despite that, they had to feel good only trailing by 2 at the half. In the second half, they played better and had a good third quarter, again relying on that defense to get them back in the game. In the third, they had Penn Wood completely off balance and built up a five point lead. And I think they could have won the game. But Johnson took over and just wouldn't let his team lose.

• Next year, I think the Bears have an excellent nucleus coming back with Chad Styer, Quinn Cozzens, Kyle McNeil and Brad Garber. Garber really showed me something Saturday. He doesn't have any fear and took on Penn Wood's taller players with a lot of aggression. Styer and Cozzens will be a force next year as well. I think they'll be a lot like the duo Columbia had this year in Pittman and Seibert. McNeil is a beast rebounding, but he's got to be more aggressive on offense and not be afraid to take a big shot. Styer didn't have his best shooting game against Penn Wood, but as a shooter should do, he kept shooting. He's not afraid to miss, which is what makes him such a dangerous player.

• The seniors also gave this team a lot of energy. Nate Koach had a phenomenal year, and I think he sometimes gets overlooked in the broad spectrum of L-L players. Jordan Hallman, Nate McCurdy and Mike O'Shea also were big time contributors who played very well at times.

• There's definitely a bright future for E-town basketball, and I think a large part of that is due to the coaching staff. They're a bright bunch that legitimately cares about their players. And that cannot be overstated when you talk about a team's psyche.