Garnet Valley’s Jake Sniras (34) grabs a rebound over Methacton’s Cole Hargrove during Friday’s District-1 6A quarterfinal at Methacton. (Owen McCue – MediaNews Group)
By Matthew DeGeorge
After a leniently refereed first half yielded just nine total fouls, 10 were whistled in the third quarter, leaving Faccenda and McKee with four each. McKee put Garnet Valley up, 36-34, with a second-chance bucket with 4:29 to play, but he fouled out on the next trip, hacking Hargrove as he banked in a shot.
Hargrove’s basket came on the sixth possession of the quarter, a testament to how the Jags slowed the pace. They were 9-for-15 shooting from the field in the first half, making Methacton extend out, hoping to open cutting lanes through a lanky defense. Jake Sniras not only put Garnet Valley up 34-32 on their first look in the fourth, but they lopped 1:14 off the clock in doing so.
“Game by game, we get more comfortable with it,” Koehler said of the slower pace. “It’s not something as a Garnet Valley team that we’ve been used to the last for the past few years. So certainly some adjusting to be done, but we’ve got a good group of guys and we’re getting better at it.”