It’s still being called the Cedar Beach Showcase even though it is not being held at Cedar Beach and hasn’t been for several years.
But for tradition’s sake, the name remains the same as the first high school boys basketball tournament of the month began Friday night across town from Cedar Beach at Executive.
And when it comes to tradition, Allentown Central Catholic has one of the most renowned basketball traditions in Lehigh Valley sports history.
The Vikings won their fourth straight District 11 title and 24th overall in February and made the biggest basketball news of the summer last month when coach Dennis Csensits resigned after a legendary career at ACCHS that included a record of 284-102. In addition to a state championship in 2021, his teams won nine District 11 titles, including the last four in a row, and also a pair of league championships.
His assistants, Dave Gehris and Kevin Keeler, have run the team on an interim basis since his departure and have kept the team together through the uncertainty of who the next coach will be.
In the tournament at Executive, ACCHS went 1-2 but Keeler said they were missing several players including top returnee Yariel Gonzalez.
The Vikings lost their first game in the tournament Friday night, falling to Easton 35-28, but stayed alive later with a 53-35 victory over Hazleton as Nate Eddinger scored 17 points. They lost to Executive 49-38 and were eliminated on Saturday morning.
“It’s tough but it’s still Central Catholic basketball and there’s still pride and the mentality of wanting to pass on the tradition,” Keeler said. “Dave Gehris has been here for 11 years and I’ve been here for seven. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I might be done. I might have coached my last game and that’s hard because I’ve been doing this for 44 years. We might find out who the new coach is on Monday, so we just don’t know.”
Keeler and Gehris are two of the candidates and if one gets it, the other would stay on. Csensits said several times that any of his assistants were good enough to be the next head coach.
“It’s emotional for me because I don’t know if this is it,” Keeler said. “We have great kids here. We played Easton tough on Friday and we’re throwing stuff in on the run because we haven’t had a lot of continuity. We have transfers that have come in and freshmen playing on the varsity, so we scrimmaged 15 minutes before the game on Friday throwing in some simple stuff they have never seen before.
“It’s different, it’s summer,” Keeler added. “You take a deep breath and you understand that things are going to get more cohesive when you get closer to November.”
Bangor beats Parkland, Freedom
Bangor beat both Parkland and Freedom on Saturday to get to 3-0 in the tournament and advance to Sunday’s winners bracket final against Berks Catholic.
Landon Childs, a rising junior, scored 17 points against Freedom after he hit the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Parkland. The shot came from well beyond the halfcourt line and caused one of the biggest celebrations the program has had in years.
“When it left my hands, I knew it was going in right away,” Childs said. “Matt Pinto got a huge rebound and threw it right to me. It was from the 3-point line at the opposite end of the court. I never practiced a shot like that before. At the end of practices, we take halfcourt shots but nothing like that. It was nuts; a great experience. The second it came off my hand, I knew it was going in. It was definitely something I will never forget.”
While the 3-point, game-winner by Childs was the most memorable basket of the day, the Slaters had plenty of other offensive moments.
In the win over Parkland, Lincoln Rehrig scored 18 points.
“I love our effort,” Slaters coach Colin Kessler said. “We’ve been battling all summer. We haven’t had the record we wanted [1-11 while playing in the big-school division of the summer league]. I told our guys that this is basically our playoffs for the summer, so let’s make the most of it. The guys have been showing up all summer long, working in the weight room four days a week, participating in open gyms, driving down here to play games. It’s paying off. You can tell by how they’re playing right now.”
Kessler, whose team was 11-13 last season, said it’s all about learning how to play together and getting better.
“In the summer, you win games, you lose games, but at the end of the day it’s all about getting ready for the regular season,” he said. “We’ll be able to tell during the season when we actually have everybody. Bron [Holland] took the program over and turned it into a championship team. We lost in the league championship my first year [2020] and we both the league and district title in my second year and we haven’t been back since. Ultimately, our goal is to win championships.”
Becahi’s boss
Sammy Barona was in his first tournament since replacing Scott McClary as the new coach at Bethlehem Catholic. The Golden Hawks beat Salisbury and lost to Southern Lehigh in the small-school bracket.
“Things are going well,” he said. “I have been excited to be a part of this program and now I’m really excited to the leader of these young men and I’m excited about the future.”
Becahi was 12-11 last season and lost its first district playoff game.
“We only have one or two players coming back with varsity experience, but we have a lot of other players who are going to surprise people,” Barona said. “They are very competitive and have a lot of skill. About half of our team are a combination of football and basketball players. I love the strength and physicality of what they bring.”
Barona said the goal this summer is simply improvement.
“Every day we’ve got to be better than the last time we stepped on the court,” he said. “We have to focus every open gym, every lift, every game we play.”
Barona has an inspiring to bring his kids. He was cut by his eighth-grade basketball coach, but used other paths to become a prominent pro player for 10 seasons.
“This opportunity is a testament to my faith and to what God has always been in my life,” Barona said. “He always decides how things are going to go and to not have played EPC high school basketball, but now be a coach in the EPC makes me love how God does his thing and writes his story.”
Play in the 21-team tournament (nine big school, seven small school and five JV) continued throughout Saturday afternoon and will begin at 10 a.m. Sunday. It will culminate with three championship games beginning at 3 p.m. with the JV finals followed by the small-school title game at 4 and the big-school game at 5.
Friday night’s scores
Big School Bracket
Easton 35, Allentown Central Catholic 28. … Saboor Houser 12 points
Berks Catholic 53, Executive 49 … Carmelo Harper 14 points
Bangor 48, Hazleton 38 … Landon Childs 12 points
Freedom 51, John Bartram 35 … Vinny Golas 24 points
Allentown Central Catholic 53, Hazleton 35 … Nate Eddinger 17 points
Small School Bracket
Becahi 55, Salisbury 48 … David Hubany 15 points
Notre Dame-Green Pond 55, Bethlehem Christian 44 … Emmett Reiland & Jameson Kopp 12 points each
Pen Argyl 37, Innovative Arts 29 … Derek Stuckey & Kaen Kaiser 11 points each
JV Bracket
Easton 30, Allentown Central Catholic 29 … Jayden Ham 9 points
Saturday scores
Big school bracket
Berks Catholic 49, Easton 32 … Carmelo Harper 17
Bangor 47, Parkland 44 … Lincoln Rehrig 18
Executive 49, ACCHS 38 … Cam Michel 18
John Bartram 41, Parkland 36 … Samir Frazier 18
Bangor 48, Freedom 24 … Landon Childs 17
Small School Bracket
Southern Lehigh 52, Bethlehem Catholic 38 … Parker Spigelmyer 16
Innovative Arts 48, Bethlehem Christian 46 … Burchell Douglas 17
Notre Dame-Green Pond def. Pen Argyl by forfeit
Salisbury def. Pen Argyl by forfeit
JV Bracket
Parkland 44, Easton 37 … Leiyton Graham 12
Executive Education 66, Southern Lehigh 40 … Max Simpson 13