Another Challenging Week Ahead For Marple Newtown

This promises to be another challenging week for the boys’ basketball team. The Tigers will be away at Penncrest on Tuesday followed by another tough challenge later this week at Strath Haven, both starting at 7:30 p.m.

“These are two teams we’re right in there with, and we’ll have to come out this week with some big efforts and if we can string a couple of good games together,” said Jerry Doemling, Marple Newtown coach. “When confident, we play very well. We just need to get on a role and these two games are huge for us.”

The after Marple Newtown dropped a 54-43 decision to what’s turning into a very good Harriton team last Friday.

The Harriton game was close up until midway into the third quarter when the Rams defensive pressure was turned up a notch and the game separated by five points, the game quickly turned into an 11-point Harriton edge. However, there were some strong points that were shown in the Tigers—one glaring one was the increasingly sound play of junior point Joe Kelly.

Kelly had his best game of the season against Harriton, scoring 10 points and turning the ball over just two times.

“Joe’s starting to get his basketball legs,” Doemling said. “He’s making better decisions and we’re still looking for him to be more assertive sometimes, we would like to see him take control more often. But Joe’s looking better and better on the court. He’s doing some nice things and things we really like.”

Penncrest is coming off a super performance against Springfield, a 47-46 victory last Friday. It snapped the Lions’ two-game losing streak—which is something Marple Newtown has not experienced so far this season.

“We haven’t lost two straight games and we’re trying to keep that intact against Penncrest Tuesday night,” Doemling said. “Individually, and as a team, we need to work on being more consistent. What we’re looking for is getting on a more consistent run, playing two, three games in a row well."

Doemling reflected, "We learned some things against Harriton. We got the ball into our halfcourt offense, but there were some things we saw that we can do better the next time we see them. We just need to take a breath and slow down. We didn’t do a good job of that Friday night.”

Strath Haven is 9-3 overall and 4-2 in the league—but one of the Panthers’ three losses came against Marple Newtown (61-45) on December 23 in a game that the Tigers led from start-to-finish.