Garnet Valley’s Carl Schaller hits a basket in the first half against Haverford Tuesday. Schaller had 18 points in the Jaguars’ 54-44 victory. (Pete Bannan/MediaNews Group)
By Matthew DeGeorge
Through the Mike Brown era of Garnet Valley basketball, the blueprint has been simple.
Usually, and fortunately, there has been a standout guard. Always, they have been surrounded by players willing to do the dirty work, to screen at will, and ever ready to shoot from behind the 3-point line when the ball finds them.
New year, new masks, same old Garnet Valley.
uesday, Justin Langan put on display his offseason growth, scoring 14 points to go with 13 rebounds in a 54-44 win over Haverford in a meeting of PIAA Class 6A qualifiers last year.
Langan was a little used bench piece last season for the Central League regular-season champion, averaging 3.8 points per game and hitting 19 3-pointers. As players have moved on, through graduation or second-leading scorer Neel Beniwal’s transfer to Phelps School, others have assumed larger roles, as the older players did a year ago, and the generation before, and so on.
Langan showed he isn’t just able to fill Chris Coyne’s void in the lane in doing the dirty work on the boards. He can also create off the dribble, as in a blow-by at the first-half buzzer, and a catch and shoot off a slip-screen from Carl Schaller to end the third.
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