BP boys’ staying alive Metheny,Krafczynski help Hawks beat Foxes
All for one and one for all isn’t just the motto of the Three Musketeers. It’s the anthem of the Bethel Park boys’ basketball team.
For it has taken a united effort for the Hawks to run their record to 18-5 overall and to reach the quarterfinals of the WPIAL Quad-A tournament. A 49-45 triumph over Fox Chapel in a first-round playoff game at North Hills High School was a classic example of the Hawks’ camaraderie and teamwork.
“Its just guys making plays,” said Ben O’Connor after his Hawks ended Fox Chapel’s season at 17-6.
Levi Metheny made the biggest play of all.
After Brian Papich’s thundering dunk and Matt D’Amico’s free throw thrust the Foxes into the lead, 45-42, with 1:53 to play, the sophomore scored a basket and then stole the ball with under 40 seconds to play.
“Well the momentum definitely switched whenever they got that dunk and I knew we needed to get the ball back so I tried one steal and I came up with it.
“Definitely,” continued Metheny, who finished with seven points. “I knew if I could get that steal our teammates would make the shot. I believe in every one of my teammates. They always have my back and I have theirs.”
Josh Krafczynski carried his teammates on his shooting hand. He made the critical shot. With 33 seconds to play, the senior buried his sixth 3-point field goal of the game, putting BP ahead for good, 47-45. Krafczynski finished with a game-high 20 tallies.
Of the sequence that led to his heroics Krafczynski deflected praise and explained how Metheny had just made a big play for the Hawks and got the ball back for us. “We knew we had to score there eventually so we tried to keep the ball moving, stay calm and make a shot.
“Coach says ‘if you have a shot and you’re open, shoot it. We’re all shooters,” Krafczynski continued. “We all make shots. Anybody could have done it.”
Anybody as passionate as Metheny could have stolen the ball that set up the shot. Though he is a reserve on the hoop team, Metheny is a grizzled veteran from nearly two seasons as the starting quarterback of the football team.
“Levi’s a winner. He made a play we diagram like this,” O’Connor said then proceeded to trace an image on his sweater vest. “It’s called heart.”
“I wish I could stand here and say it was a great coaching philosophy or strategy. Our kids just made one or two more plays. There was a lot of strategy and a lot of preparation but in the end, it’s make a few lay-ups, make your foul shots, rebound the ball and defend.”
Defense concurred Krafczynski won the contest for the Hawks, who weathered 10-3 and 9-3 runs by the Foxes in the second half. “I felt like we were moving the ball real well and we all were contributing. Of course, I hit six threes but that’s not what won the game for us. Defense did.”
BP’s defense did stymy Fox Chapel and its big guns: Papich, D’Amico and Billy Urso. The Foxes averaged 65.4 points per game. Papich was a 1,000-point scorer and D’Amico ranked 10th in the WPIAL in scoring with a 22.9 average.
“I tried not to overcomplicate it,” said O’Connor about his preparation for the Foxes. “We talked all week about D’Amico, Urso and Papich. They are very good and we wanted to do our best to limit them. Someone like D’Amico, you are not going to shutout. He’s a great player. He proved it. He made big plays down the stretch.”
While D’Amico finished with 11 tallies, Papich scored all 16 of his points in the second half. Papich closed a 37-30 third-quarter gap to one when he converted four straight free and a bucket with less than five minutes to play.
Each time Krafczynski answered with a trey, D’Amico or Papich responded. The dunk was the exclamation point in a 7-0 run that gave Fox Chapel a 45-42 lead with 1:53 to play. Yet, the Hawks did not wilt.
“They like to score a lot of points in their section and that was our goal going into this. It was to try and stop them,” said Krafczynski of BP’s defensive strategy.
“We also talked about (a possible dunk) in practice,” he continued. “We knew (Papich) could dunk. We knew he was a really good athlete. And, we said, ‘if he dunks, then stay calm and get the ball inbounds and try and go make a play.”
While Dan Breit, Quentin Keibler and Jake Murphy were making plays on the defensive boards for the Hawks, Joe Mascaro and Jake Dixon were combining for points on the offensive end, particularly in the third stanza as the Hawks expanded a 25-20 halftime advantage to their largest lead, 32-24. Dixon scored all seven of his points in the third quarter. Mascaro racked up 11 points, including a pair of free throws with 19.2 seconds left to seal the victory.
“When you play a team like Fox Chapel and you win, you are going to play as well as you can and in the playoffs, we said this all week, we don’t have to go make 15 threes to win, we just have to play hard and play well. Play focused. It’s as simple as that. We played for 32 minutes,” O’Connor said.
“What sums up the game is the way we battled and we were tired and they were tired and when they made that run to go up three, our kids could have broke and they didn’t. The best thing I can say about our guys is they just kept playing.”
As a result, the Hawks get to keep playing. Bethel Park will face top-ranked and undefeated New Castle (22-0) in the quarterfinals set for Feb. 22 at a site and time to be determined.
Regardless of the odds against them, the Hawks intend on giving their all as they did against Fox Chapel, which O’Connor said could easily be the fourth best team in the WPIAL.
“No matter what,” Metheny said. “I’ll do anything for my teammates.
Against Fox Chapel he added, “I definitely wanted to (win) for the seniors because it could potentially have been their last game and I didn’t want that to happen. Basically, we all play for them. We play for each other. So the goal is to keep playing.”