It would have been easy for Springfield to float Upper Darby a win Thursday night. Hey, the Cougars hadn't exactly been tearing it up of late. So when the Royals pieced together a late charge, the Cougars had their opening.

They did not take it.

Instead, they played old-school basketball (they hit their free throws, they made crisp passes and they read up on the rule book) to overtake the Royals, 46-45.

By far the best play of the night came in the final 15 seconds. Springfield junior center Wally Rutecki was prepared to inbound the ball out of a timeout, with his team ahead. Rutecki turned on the baseline and passed to sophomore guard Zack DeVito, who inbounded the ball to Rutecki.The furious passing confused the heck out of the Royals, and killed a couple important ticks off the clock. According to DeVito, it was a play the Cougars had used in a game against Ridley earlier this season.

"Our coach (Kevin McCormick) knew about that rule and we practice it sometimes," DeVito said.

"It's a good way to get the ball in at the end of the game," Rutecki said. "When they're in a man-to-man press like that, they have no one guarding the ball."

###

KUDOS:
... to Strath Haven's Calvin Newell, who became the county's second player to breach the career 1,000-point plateau this season. He needed 38 against Haverford, which would have matched the county's 2008-09 highwater mark that he established three times. Instead, Newell got 39 -- one more for good measure.

"I wasn't really shooting that good but I just let the game go to see what would happen," he said.

###

...to Radnor's Corey Dunson, who scored 10 points. He took a backseat offensively in the Red Raiders' 52-50 overtime win over Ridley, but limited Marc Dziadon to five points. Dziadon had averaged 14.5 points in his last five outings.