A-K Valley boys basketball notebook: No cupcakes on Springdale schedule

By: Greg Macafee
Thursday, February 11, 2021 | 6:40 PM

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In order to be one of the best teams in the WPIAL, you have to play against the best teams in the WPIAL. Over the past week, the Class 2A No. 2 Springdale Dynamos have faced off with two of the best.

Last Friday, the Dynamos (9-5, 4-2) met Class 2A No. 1 Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (13-0, 9-0). The Chargers took home the victory easily, but the Dynamos showed fight throughout.

Senior swingman Demitri Fritch scored 23 of the Dynamos’ 60 points and sharp-shooter Ryan Reinsfelder hit four 3-pointers to score 12 points while senior Ben Myford added 11. But senior Dante Spadafora and junior Jake DiMichele scored 29 points apiece for OLSH.

The Dynamos played without junior forward Logan Dexter. Coach Aaron Epps said a contest like that just shows his team where it needs to improve.

“We’ve had a good year so far, and we’ve beaten good teams, and we’re still a very good team,” Epps said. “It’s just they are clearly a better team than us, and we gotta keep working.”

On Wednesday, the Dynamos lost to another top team as they fell to Class 3A No. 1 South Allegheny, 68-43, marking their only two-game losing streak of the season.

In fact, all of Springdale’s losses this season have come against ranked teams. The Dynamos fell to OSLH twice, Class A No. 1 Bishop Canevin and Class 5A No. 4 Highlands before their loss to South Allegheny.

At the beginning of the season, Epps talked about purposely putting together one of the toughest schedules in the WPIAL so his team would be battle-tested heading into the playoffs.

Seems like Epps has gotten what he wished for as the Dynamos remain confident heading into the WPIAL’s open tournament.

Hitting their stride

Freeport started off the 2020-21 season with a three-game gauntlet against defending WPIAL Class 3A champion North Catholic, defending Class 4A champion Highlands and Knoch, which was a preseason top 5 team in the Trib HSSN Class 4A rankings.

The Yellowjackets (4-4, 3-3) came away with three losses, but they’ve started to hit their stride recently, winning four of their past five. Led by juniors Cole Charlton (13.3 ppg.) and Conner Holloway (10.3 ppg), the Yellowjackets have earned two wins over Keystone Oaks and also pulled out victories over Burrell and North Clarion.

Freeport scored an average of 64.8 points and gave up 57.4 points per game per game during the five-game stretch.

Coach Wayne Greiser has four other players averaging five points or more. Sophomore Ben Lane (8.9 ppg.), junior Jason Kijowski (8.2 ppg.), junior Vinnie Clark (6.7 ppg.) and sophomore Parker Lucas (5.3 ppg.) have played big roles for the Yellowjackets.

They’ll get their rematch with Knoch on Friday.

Nearing 200 wins

Deer Lakes coach Terence Parham is nearing a career milestone.

Between his time as head coach at Shady Side Academy and Deer Lakes, Parham entered this season with 189 career wins.

The Lancers have put together an overall record of 7-3, so Parham is only four wins away from reaching win No. 200. With five regular season games left, the Lancers could deliver Parham his milestone victory.

Greg Macafee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Greg by email at gmacafee@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Tags: Deer Lakes, Freeport, Springdale