They had only minutes earlier finished off their biggest rival in a game decided by four points. They had, in the moments prior to that game, honored their two eldest players in Senior Day festivities.

Needless to say, The Haverford School coach Steve Cloran's players have not considered playing in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Tournament, which begins next month.

The Fords (11-8, 2-4) were more trained on winning out the rest of their Inter-Academic League slate, which includes two important games with league-leading Chestnut Hill Academy. But they know only four games separate them from the Indy Tourney, which is for all the marbles.

It used to be that representatives from the Inter-Ac and the Catholic leagues - and a host of other smaller schools from outside the Philadelphia area - would play for the state title. Now, with the Catholic kids playing in the PIAA, it's mostly an Inter-Ac heavy playoff. That doesn't alter its importance.

But Cloran's players - and the coach himself - don't want to think about that just yet. They have important games to win.

"You kind of, with high school players, you don't want to put too much in their heads," Cloran said Thursday. "So we might only quickly talk about that with them. Our main goal this year is to win more games in the Inter-Ac League. We're not there yet, but we'll continue to stay in the present."

Added junior center Andrew Acker: "We haven't really talked about that tournament all that much. I think he wants all of us to focus on finishing up the Inter-Ac. ... We've got some tough ones coming up first."

The Pa. Independent Schools tourney kicks off Feb. 15 at the higher seeds' home gyms, and finishes Feb. 19 and 20 at Montgomery County Community College.

COMING TOMORROW: An updated look at the Inter-Ac standings, and what The Haverford School and Episcopal Academy need to do to finish near the top as the season nears conclusion.

Sunday, Penn Wood point guard Tyree Johnson became the eighth player in school history to score 1,000 points in his career. He did so nonchalantly, too, hitting a fourth-quarter free throw late in Penn Wood's 66-48 rout of Chester.

Johnson, the reigning Daily Times Player of the Year, finished with 10 points in the game. He joins Lamont Ferrell*, Rap Curry, Mike Holmes, Shawn Day, Ed Millard, Duane Johnson and Micah Covert# in Penn Wood's 1,000-point club. (Ferrell started at Yeadon and finished his career at Penn Wood; Covert started with the Pats and capped his career off with Chester).

Johnson's per-game average is down from a year ago. It doesn't have either him or Penn Wood coach Clyde Jones worried.

"Listen, it doesn’t really matter. I’m a point guard," Johnson said. "My job is to get everybody involved anyway. My points are going to come during the flow. I get them the ball, they get it to me. It’s as simple as that."

Added Jones: "The greatest compliment I can give Tyree this year is how, for the most part, he has really decided that he has other people to get the ball to. He sees himself as a distributor. And in this day and age, when it’s tough to get kids to not think I have to shoot, to see him do that is special. The sad part about that is it doesn’t put him in anybody’s rankings for scoring, but it makes him perfect for us and what we do. The other night, I actually had to tell him to shoot the ball."

Johnson is getting interest from Monmouth, Rider, Hartford and Siena.

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Also, here's some more from the boys basketball scene:
---Daily Times photographer Bob Gurecki grabbed some video and assembled highlights from Sunday's Penn Wood-Chester game.
---This week marks the first installment of the boys basketball notebook - the feature focuses on The Haverford School's Andrew Acker, probably the county's most improved player thus far. The notes include Glen Mills' Raheem Harvey, who sustained a car accident during the holidays and remains hospitalized, and Chichester's Brian Parker, who has an outside chance at 1,000 points.

Haverford School coach Steve Cloran thinks he's only coached two 12-point comeback victories – one of them being Saturday's stunning 47-45 thriller over Penn Charter at Cabrini University.

The Fords erased their dozen-point deficit by applying a pressure defense that prevented the Quakers from getting into their offensive sets even just once in the fourth quarter. It resulted in an 18-4 scoring advantage for the Fords in the fourth.

After starting 0-3, the Fords (9-3, 1-0) have won nine in a row. That's thanks largely to the play of underclassmen. They have only two seniors on their roster – guard A.J. Jones and forward Matt Lengel. Their primary six-man rotation includes three sophomores and a junior.

“I think, with so many young guys on our team, they get frustrated when the shots aren't falling,” Cloran said. “When the ball isn't going in, they hang their heads. The important thing for them is to keep coming, keep trying and just trusting that the shots will fall.”

Sophomores RaShaan Hollman (12 points, 5 rebounds, 4 steals), Brendan Purcell (11 points) and Zach Thomas (3 points, 3 steals) were integral to the win. So was junior Andrew Acker, who had 8 points and 14 rebounds.